‘Corona Dhavan’ movie review: Malayalam liquor comedy has its moments, but fails to make an impact 

With its multiple plotlines and many characters, debutant director CC’s movie seems more like a series of episodes than a cohesive narrative   

Corona Dhavan is a lot; multiple intertwined plots and subplots, and then some more. It has more characters than a classic Russian novel, and CC’s debut film does not live up to the promise of the trailer. The movie pivots around 30 bottles of ‘Dhavan’, a fictional brand of liquor available in Kerala, and several groups of people including cops trying to find it. 

Intended to be a comic caper, the movie stars Lukman Avaran as Vinu in the lead role. He has the stash which almost everyone in Anathadam, where the film is located, wants. Set in the backdrop of the lockdown, it serves as a walk down memory lane to that difficult time of masks, social distancing, COVID tests, sanitisers and drones being employed by cops to monitor gatherings, violating social distancing etc. Liquor was one of the things that became a premium item. Since bars and Bevco outlets were shut, those looking for booze resorted to extreme measures for their fix including drinking sanitisers, Ayurvedic concoctions and with a few adventurous even distilling alcohol at home. 

Vinu buys the liquor to entertain guests attending his sister’s wedding, which is called off when she elopes with a friend of his. Everyone in the village knows he has the stash, and the men look forward to the ‘celebration’ that is not to be.

As word about the stash spreads, others join the fray of potential ‘customers’ with some willing to pay more than 10 times the price. This is where the problem with the narrative starts; there are way too many characters and subplots. With a talented cast of character actors that include Johny Antony, Sunil Sukhada, Irshad, Sreenath Bhasi, and Shivaji Guruvayoor, the director must have felt the pressure to do justice to each. The narrative lacks cohesion, and seems more like a series of episodes strung together. Comedy is not easy to pull off, and Corona Dhavan does not meet expectations. 

It is a film for men, by men. The drinking jokes would be lost, and situations and locations foreign to women. That said, not as many women ventured out during the lockdown as men. The female characters and actors barely have anything to do. The extremely talented Seema G Nair is, as usual, underutilised, and the other two are stereotypes; the sister who elopes taking all the gold ornaments bought for the wedding, and the romantic interest essayed by Sruthy Jayan who ditches Vinu in the end for a ‘safe, capable and secure’ match.  

But Corona Dhavan does have its moments of situational humour, which makes one laugh out loud; the climax is one such instance. The drone episode is hilarious too, but is drawn-out and one can’t help wondering how it fits into the scheme of things; similarly, placing the ‘competition’ between the Excise Department and Kerala Police into the plot seems forced. The debutant director and writer, Sujai Mohanraj, have many things to say, but have just packed everything into the film. The result is that it is all over the place. 

The A rating is, initially, confusing. However, on watching the film it is clear that it is justified. Worse [read violent] films have passed without it but… the film, though a work of fiction, seems to suggest that consumption of liquor makes for a fun raison d’etre!