Saturday Night is one of those movies whose trailer was way better than the actual movie. The trailer promised us an action-packed entertainer with non-stop fun, laughter, and a generous dose of feel-good moments. But, what we got actually was a bland platter of disappointment. Even Nivin Pauly’s ‘party-animal’ charm failed to strike a chord.
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Stanley (Nivin Pauly) is a highly problematic character. He thinks he’s a good friend for crossing the line one too many times when it comes to the personal matters of his friends. And this film is not about him learning how to respect boundaries and not suffocating his friends into submission. Unfortunately, director Roshan Andrews and his screenwriter Naveen Bhaskar mount an overstretched feature film to argue that Stanley is right. His timidly twisted approach to dealing with the challenges of life is good. But, his friends’ struggle to make good of their not-so-perfect life is a bad thing.
The hero’s friends, Ajith, Justin and Sunil aka Poocha go their sperate ways after a bitter incident. The four go about living their lives and get busy dealing with the pains of getting older. Ajith and Justin assume that even Stanley would have moved on and made an effort to do something with his life. They are in for a rude shock when the find out that he’s kind of stuck in a time capsule. Stanley even today lives in the same room, wears the same clothes, hasn’t solved his Rubik’s cube, uses the same-old tape recorder to play music, and is still waiting for his friends to go along with him on a vacation.
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Roshan and Naveen fail to comprehend that not everyone can afford the ‘no-work, all play’ lifestyle of Stanley. And they try to shove the wrong meaning of true friendship down our throats. This film’s solution to dealing with challenges of modern-day life is to take it hopelessly lightly. It’s one tone and it never focuses on the other side of Stanley’s act of a noble and loyal friend. For example, Poocha (Aju Varghese) gate-crashes a black-tie party and disrespects guests and personal boundaries. And the whole sequence is staged in such a way that all those at the party were in the wrong for failing to appreciate Poocha’s candour. There are more such examples of how this film tries to paint those who dislike the antics of Stanley and company are bad, and those who like them are good.
Saturday Night is overtly melodramatic, deluded, indifferent and judgemental. Try not to fall asleep while watching this movie.
