Game Over: is it worth playing?

Weekends are for movies, and it’s on a weekday when you’ve decided upon a movie outing then it’s a calculated decision for getting away from the prosaic life. Though I read many raving reviews about this one, I surprised myself seated in the theatre and when the movie name displayed ‘Game over.’ Lately, I’ve gained this liking for movies in regional languages especially Malayalam and Tamil ( south Indian languages) for this sheer reason that they narrate stories in truest of forms.

One of the main reasons for surprising myself was hubby dearest aversion to the horror genre. And the opening scene confirmed my fear when I had him turning his head away from the screen and looking at me, which is not a normal thing to happen after a good 17 years of marriage. It was not a pleasant scene where the malefactor breaks into a teenagers house while she is in the bath. Cut to the next scene is her face wrapped and sealed with plastic and limbs tied up and her despairing attempts at freeing herself. The suffering doesn’t end there. Ashwin makes sure that you sit upright on your seat as the next scene shows the girls beheaded body being burned and her head is pocketed into a nearby football post.

I wouldn’t like to give any spoilers here. But this one scene would tell you whether you should be shocking yourself. If you choose otherwise all I would say is you’ll be missing out on an important lesson of life. The protagonist Swapna, a game designer by profession played by Taapsee Pannu (who is totally in her element and proves yet again that there is hardly anyone who can beat her at the choice of scripts), is a PTSD survivor and a nyctophobic who seeks medical aid. She lives in complete isolation, Along with her domestic help Kala (played by Vinodhini) who is the only ray of light in this otherwise dark movie (dark in a good way no sarcasm there) so much so that she had stayed away from her parents for years. She has a premonition for new year’s eve and haunting thoughts. Her troubles with her past are interwoven in the story by voice-overs of her parents judging her and she in desperation trying to explain repeatedly that “I wish I could go back and mend things, but that’s not the way life works.”

It can be termed fictional, and we can look at the story from a gamer’s perspective. Is it all a part of Swapna’s hallucinations? We wouldn’t know. Swapna being a compulsive gamer herself, is highly influenced by Pacman. And she finds herself in a maze, a game called ‘life.’ It’s her head and three gothic figures after it. But here she gets that chance which she often is seen a yearning for.

The movie depicts beautifully how important it is to overcome your fears and dissect the demons feeding upon you, it makes an impactful attempt at the importance of fighting your inner demons, and running away is never the solution which is explained well through Swapna’s unsuccessful attempts at suicides.

Ashwin has a winner with this one if not at BO but definitely with a lot of likewise humans who can relate with Swapna’s state of claustrophobia during many occasions. A person suffering from nyctophobia overcomes her fear and triumphs at her battle in complete darkness. Ashwin’s knack at narrating tales stands out in many scenes. The detailing has been excellent like the simple image at the clinic where Swapna is seated showing lunar eclipse which depicts her state of mind. Another noteworthy mention would be the background track by Ron Ethan Yohanan which sends a chill down your spine and makes you shriek many a time.

The movie opens as a murder mystery and goes on as a psychological thriller. It really doesn’t matter what the genre is as far as it holds your attention and how. It’s of no much relevance when the reach and idea of the movie are so broad and enormous. It’s not free of potholes, somewhere it felt like Swapna didn’t get a proper closure, but I will leave it at that. Even life doesn’t give us a proper closure. It gifts us lessons and teachings. And that’s what the movie does.

‘We have two chances at life and the second one starts when we realize that this is the final one!
Do give this one a try it may disturb you occasionally, but it would surely impart a much valuable lesson!