Haricharan Pudipeddi
Chennai, 26 Jan 2022 19:30 IST
The highlight of Bro Daddy has to be the fact that it has one of Malayalam cinema's biggest stars playing father to another leading star.
Prithviraj Sukumaran’s second directorial project, Bro Daddy (2022), unlike his debut film Lucifer (2019), is a light-hearted entertainer that is long drawn but fun while it lasts.
Cut from the same cloth as Ayushmann Khurrana's Hindi hit Badhaai Ho (2018), the film, starring Mohanlal, is a family drama about unplanned pregnancy and manages to tickle the funny bone while handling the subject maturely. It is also a film that brings together two of the biggest stars of Malayalam cinema, Mohanlal (as the father) and Prithviraj (as the son), and lets them have fun playing their parts. The bromance between these two actors is what holds the film together even in its dullest moments.
Mohanlal plays John Kattadi and Meena plays his wife, Annamma. Eesho (Prithviraj) plays their son. Eesho falls in love with Anna (Kalyani Priyadarshan), daughter of Kurian (Lalu Alex) and Elsy Kurian (Kaniha). John and Kurian are good friends and their wives feel it would be nice if they get their children married. They are unaware that Eesho and Anna have been living together for four years in Bangalore. Eesho and Anna have been thinking about telling their parents about their relationship, but just when they start getting ready to break the news, Anna discovers she is pregnant. At the same time, Eesho is asked to come home by his father and gets the shock of his life when he learns that his mother is pregnant, too.
The highlight of Bro Daddy has to be the fact that it has one of the biggest stars of Malayalam cinema playing father to another leading star. It is refreshing to see two popular stars come together to back a movie that talks about accidental pregnancy, a subject that is still not openly spoken about in mainstream cinema. The film works to a large extent because it treats the subject in a light-hearted manner. The comical moments help the film stay mostly entertaining. The second half meanders to an extent and the film is dragged needlessly making the latter portion slightly hard to sit through. Nevertheless, the performances make up for the film’s boring stretches.
Mohanlal is unarguably the pick of the cast and he charms his way through the movie with an effortless performance. He nails those minute expressions with ease which make his character stand out.
Prithviraj is equally good as Mohanlal’s son. The scenes between them offer some of the best moments of the film. Kalyani Priyadarshan gets a meaty part and shines in the limited screen space she gets.
Unlike in Badhaai Ho, the story in Bro Daddy is set in an upper-middle-class family and you expect the subject to be dealt with some broad-mindedness, but the story still takes a predictable narrative path. This aspect of the movie is slightly underwhelming and you are left hoping we get to see a more progressive take on the subject of unplanned pregnancy.
Bro Daddy is now available on Disney+ Hotstar.