Mughizh Movie Review : A genteel drama on dealing with grief

In the opening portions of Mughizh, Kavya (Sreeja Vijay Sethupathi), a young girl, is walking down the road along with her father, Vijay (Vijay Sethupathi) and mother, Radhika (Regina Cassandra). She spots a stray walking in their direction and quickly whispers to her dad to not call it. But he does and see why she said so. Kavya quickly darts to her mother's side and is petrified as Vijay pets the animal. She is scared of dogs and Vijay decides to do something about it. He brings home a pup, and gradually, as expected, the girl warms up to him and becomes attached to the animal, who they name Scooby. But a quirk of fate results in Scooby leaving their lives. And Kavya goes into a shell. Can she overcome the loss and her usual self?

One of the best things about Mughizh is how effortlessly Karthik Swaminathan makes this world feel so lived-in. You straightaway believe that Vijay, Radhika and Kavya are a family and their house, too, becomes a character along with them.

It is also that rare film that conveys a message without really making a hue and cry about it. There is a lesson for parents here in giving their children the space to deal with newer and complex emotions like grief, while the kids, too, get exposed to such topics. And despite dealing with a difficult theme like loss, there is a sweet-naturedness to the film that makes it endearing. The genteelness is evident even in the muted colours that the cinematographer Sathya Ponmar uses and the breezy score by Revaa. Even though the film spends a longer part of its duration on showing us how these characters deal with grief and learn to come out of it, the tone isn't mournful.

At the same time, Mughizh is also a curio. At just over an hour, it exists somewhere between a feature film and a short film. But given that it has managed to be released in theatres, naturally, it gives rise to the question if such a film can give you the wholesome feeling of having watched a movie. The answer depends on what you are looking for in a movie. Despite the fact that the story feeling complete and the performances being full of life — Sreeja is confident for a debutante while Regina's understated reactions are a delight; and Vijay Sethupathi looks the most relaxed we have seen him in recent times (and we have been seeing him a lot these days) and that makes his performance stand out — by the time the film ends, we do not get the sense of satisfaction that we get from having watched a movie in a theatre. Perhaps we have been conditioned to expect a two-hour-plus experience. Or, maybe, we have become so accustomed to viewing a certain kind of film (feel-goody, intimate) on OTT over the past year and a half. But that said, this is a film that easily works better than the underwhelming anthologies that we have been getting since the pandemic.