House Mates Review - A Refreshing Concept served as a Neat Entertainer!

Ashwin Ram

Darshan and Aarsha Chandini Baiju get married and move into their new apartment. From the very first day, they sense some strange happenings in the house but surprisingly nothing harms them. The search for the invisible being begins.

Writing/ Direction: 

Starts as a regular horror film with old-school scenes that try to raise the curiosity to the audience of what is going on in the house. The situations lack freshness and they are hurriedly packed as back to back moments without any gap or space for staging. These parts create zero impact and are largely boring as well, rushing through the bad areas is advantageous too. Interest kicks in when Kaali Venkat and family enter the setting, the wall communication steadily establishes the subject and the pre-interval portion that takes place for a lengthy 15 minutes is solid, making way for a promising second half. The latter pretty much holds well and thankfully makes up for the flaws in the initial hour. The concept is so unique which naturally tunes certain parts of the screenplay to be inventive. A couple of stretches are conveniently made, easily finding Kaali Venkat’s character in the present timeline, the entire sequence of the hero saving a kid could have been executed with lesser cinematic liberty. The high concept science fiction terms like Tesseract, alternative reality, etc are casually explained. Barring the above said points, the story is sensible. The entire idea is strongly backed by a meaningful emotional drama which justifies the happenings. There are a bunch of funny moments to hold the film, two full-fledged comedy scenes are cleverly placed in the later half. How the conflict between the families resolve at the end is written perfectly and lands as a clap-worthy point.

Performances: 

Looks-wise Darshan fits the bill, but he needs to improve a lot while emoting for serious scenes, casting a better performer would have easily elevated the film. Same goes for the heroine Aarsha Chandini Baiju, majority of her expressions felt like stock shots with absolutely no variety. On the other hand, Kaali Venkat and Vinodhini Vaidyanathan do wonders by adding great value to the story. Their performances are full of life, be it the light-hearted comedy part or the intense emotional angle, they have given their best. Good enough screen time but not much contribution from KPY Dheena. The playful innocent kid brought in the much needed charm to his role.

Technicalities: 

Very ordinary songs and background score that just exist without spooling anything but also adding no big momentum to the flick. First class camera work, not an easy film to shoot, the split frames get the deserving separate colour tones, the shots are well planned and executed as the film demands so. Being a complex subject, the editor has presented the film without tampering it unnecessarily, making sure to keep things simple so that the audience don’t get confused. Nothing exceptional, the VFX team has managed to get the basics right with their output that is apt for the story.

Bottomline

After the initial hiccups, it eventually becomes a good timepass watch. A complicated Sci-Fi subject presented in a simple manner with sufficient comedy stretches and enough human drama to make it a sensible outing.

Rating - 3/ 5