C U Soon Review: A taut ‘on-screen’ thriller about socializing and horrors of flesh trade.
Shot and made in lockdown, the entire film shot through iPhone, Go-Pros, web cameras, is engaging enough to work in all departments.
When Aneesh Chaganty’s Searching released a couple of years, an investigative thriller filmed entirely through screens, one wondered if this could be attempted in India, which just doesn’t work only because of its innovation but also is engaging story, which works anyways.
Little did we know that Fahadh Faasil and Friends would come up with one, shot and made in lockdown, without conveying to the viewers the same, and works on all the counts and stands on its own.
The film starts with Jimmy Kurian, an employee at Union National Bank, swiping left, right and centre on Tinder and gets a match from Anu Mol Sebastian, a malayali girl, whose interests show love for an ice-cream among many other things.
A human being, most often called a social animal, cannot live without socializing. ‘To socialize’ means going out, which can mean actually going out of the house, going out of your own bubble to meet new people, new ideas, learn and be able to communicate with people outside of you and your family.
In the day and age of social media, socializing has become easy, on the tip of your fingers and as any other thing, it has its pros and cons. Traditionally, there were only a few modes of meeting and socializing especially when it came to finding someone a partner for the rest of your life, the families used to lead and end the conversations and meetings.
Gradually, the onus started to fall on the persons involved in the transaction, naturally and as the technology and ways of communication have improved and changed over the years, dependence on virtual mediums have increased. In the times of restrictions and everyone at their homes, people have found refuge and a saviour in these online communication platforms, who if not personal, give some sort of a personal touch with the barrier of screens between them.
The director Mahesh Narayanan and his team has utilized all those aspects and used various screens (laptops, CCTV, mobiles, etc.) to give us a gripping tale of fickle nature of technology, relationships formed within moments and horrors of young women being coaxed into prostitution.
The latter is not new at all, the recently released ‘Khuda Haafiz’ too revolved around a similar plot of a young woman who has gone to find a job in the gulf and ends up amidst the flesh traders. But, the effective spin of the screens on the storytelling, helps ‘C U Soon’ elevate from a run-of-the-mill story about repercussions of technology, which has become a key part of our lives.
Roshan Mathew plays Jimmy Kurian, who falls in love with Anu (Darshana Rajendran), days after meeting her on an online dating website and proposes to her in front of his mother and cousin on a video chat. His mother asks his cousin Kevin, who is a tech expert and a hacker of some sort to check her background and know about her in detail.
Kevin, while searching through details and talking to Jimmy about her, starts to get suspicious of the girl, about her identity through various evidences (or the lack of) and things not adding up. Initially, hesitant of invading someone’s privacy, he gives in to his aunt’s request for Jimmy’s sake. Thus, the film unravels into Anu’s identity, her secrets and eventually to the trafficking racket, she stumbles into after going to work as a maid in the United Arab Emirates.
Painted with the same brush of that of Searching, C U Soon works better, since it lends a more emotional depth to the characters and also since everyone is in a similar situation as the characters, locked at the places where they were at the start of the lockdown. Thus, being eerily close to the situation of everyone who is watching, it resonates more.
Darshana Rajendran as Anu is exceptional, conveying Anu’s vulnerability and emotional strength and playfulness in the early stages of the film, with equal ease. Her character becomes the catalyst for the story to unfold, and Darshana gives her the depth and calmness it required.
Fahadh Faasil and Roshan Mathew as cousins Kevin and Jimmy provide the able support to give this screen drama its life and blood. And, the drama on the screen is taking place simultaneously on multiple screens, thus not giving time to the viewers to relax. Every frame, every second is important, while there is a video call going on, the same person is chatting through text with another person.
The film is relentless till the 90th minute, before it all calms down. C U Soon has enough thrills and chills to keep you hooked and not surprised that it has come from Malayalam cinema, who especially in the last few years has become the flagbearer of exceptional stories and storytelling.
Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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