Last August I had to sit in a theater with only 8-10 ppl while watching Guppy. I remember how I was particularly impressed with a scene towards the end . Tovino Thomas sits on a bench with Sreenivasan, has a very calm conversation and says – “Ithonnum ee paalam paniyaan vanna enikku ariyillallo ikka”. There was a veteran sitting opposite him and yet Tovino’s confidence and composure surprised me.
This scene in Guppy is exactly when I realized the arrival of a talented actor. Tovino made his debut playing the antagonist in ABCD in 2013. He played few supporting roles in few more movies in the next 2 years. But it was the supporting act as Appu in Ennu Ninte Moideen that made people really notice him. His biggest breakthrough in a full fledged role though was as Engineer Thejus Varky in Guppy.
Engineer Thejus Varky was a difficult role to portray. He was not exactly villainy. But he had to showcase his ego problems with the small kid convincingly. It was even more difficult in the above mentioned scene where he had to forgive a man who tried to kill him with a big smile on his face. Tovino Thomas pulled all these quite convincingly.
Despite being a great movie, Guppy failed miserably at Boxoffice. When the DVD released and the word of mouth spread, there was a huge wave of support for Tovino. But I still thought it would be something limited to social media and might not necessarily translate to box-office numbers for his next movie. Guess I was wrong.
Oru Mexican Aparatha has opened to huge crowds in Kerala. I heard from friends that in few theaters ppl had to even sit down as the seats went filled. Perhaps the college politics backdrop explains the rush in Kerala. But what is surprising is when I check in Bangalore, the shows for today are 75 – 95% full across theaters already. That is unusual for small movies here.
Tovino Thomas – Are we seeing a new star on the rise here ?
I guess so.
