TL;DR – A powerful look at overcoming adversity thrust upon you by a cruel and uncaring world     

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Review –

Today we are looking at a film that charts the lows and highs of someone who is recovering from one of the worst breaches of trust imaginable. This is a film that knows how to cast a light on a real problem in society by creating strength rather than spectacle.  

So to set the scene, we open in as Pallavi Raveendran (Parvathy Thiruvothu) who is taking her first flight in a plane and in that moment she found that joy that is discovering your passion. This is what she wanted to be when she grew up and she focused her life on becoming a pilot. When she finally gets to flight school, everything is going well until her boyfriend Govind (Asif Ali) could no longer accept the fact that she is the successful one in the relationship.  

This was a difficult film to watch at times because even if you happened to miss the synopsis before watching the film the warning signs of what is coming are there from the start. The controlling behaviour over what she wears and who she sees, threating suicide, and the non-stop calling. All of these are examples of an abusive relationship, indeed one that gets tacit support from the power structures as we see in the film. Acid attacks are a real problem in parts of the world and are a systemic example of patriarchal desire to control women and treat them as objects. I have mad respect for Parvathy in how she plays Pallavi because that must have been a really difficult role to get right. It is through her performance that the film works as well as it does. Another strength is Raveendran (Siddique) who is Pallavi’s father, who provides the support the film and Pallavi needs.                          

One of the areas where the film really excels is in finding those moments of tension in and around flying a plane. The back and forth between people on the radio is tightly edited and it makes each of those moments in the film really pop. This also helped with the structure of the film as it jumped back and forth between the current plane incident and Pallavi’s life. Indeed, the general production of this film is all really good, with some excellent framing and use of light. I was honestly surprised to find out that this was the director’s first film because it did not feel like that at all. If there was one area that didn’t quite gel as much as the rest of the film it was the music. There were times where it really felt like it was inserting itself into the film in a way that was not helpful. As well as this, while I think the film did a good job with the story, towards the end it became a bit too focused on the character of Vishal (Tovino Thomas) and his struggles to live up to his father.  

In the end, do we recommend Uyare? Yes, yes we do. This is a powerful film shining a light on a very real problem of acid attacks on women. It also shines a light on a justice system that would allow someone to be fired for throwing water at someone who attacked them. While there are some areas that could have been improved on, none of that takes away from the story and the power of Pallavi.  

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you watched Uyare?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 


Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Uyare
Directed by – Manu Ashokan
Screenplay by – Bobby–Sanjay
Music by – Gopi Sundar
Cinematography by – Mukesh Muraleedharan
Edited by – Mahesh Narayan
Production/Distribution Companies – S Cube Films, Grihalakshmi Productions, Kalpaka Films & Indywood Distribution Network
Starring – Parvathy Thiruvothu, Asif Ali, Tovino Thomas, Siddique, Anarkali Marikar, Pratap K. Pothen, Prem Prakash, Rajani Murali, Preetha Pradeep, Bhagath Manuel, Sreeram Ramachandran, Anil Murali & Irshad
Rating – Australia: M; Canada: PG; Germany: na; New Zealand: M; United Kingdom: 12A; United States: na