White

Story: Software engineer Roshni Menon saves billionaire Prakash Roy from killing himself at a London metro station. How each of their lives change from that instant onwards forms the plot.

Review: Mollywood has had its fair share of films being shot abroad over the last few years but none has arguably explored its foreign settings as much as Pranayakalam fame director Uday Ananthan’s White. And it’s the beautiful locales that give this romantic drama a much-needed impetus.

The story centres on a software engineer Roshni Menon (Huma Qureshi) who gets an assignment in London. During one of her routine trips to the metro station in the city, she pulls a billionaire Prakash Roy (Mammootty) from jumping in front of a train. Their lives are intertwined for the better as the rest of the story progresses, with each of them finding themselves in the company of the other.

Mammootty personifies lazy elegance as the gambling, alcohol-swilling, sprightly billionaire with a dispirited past. The actor sinks into the role as the film progresses and delivers some smooth lines like “Are you free for the next 25 years? You know… just to hang out” with ease.

Huma looks the part and is fun as the spirited Roshni who is exploring new things in life with every moment she spends with Prakash. The scene where the two break into a brewery had the actors in their ‘youthful’ elements. Both Siddique and Shanker Ramakrishnan carry off their cameos well.

The pace of the script is uneven, with Uday lingering on scenes too much to get the point across. For instance, sequences where her character has a drawn out conversation with her friend before leaving to London, Mammootty trying to strike a friendship with Huma and where she stays up late for work could have all been crisper, so that the payoff doesn’t come across as an afterthought. The movie though has several feel-good moments where the characters bond but is not able to sustain that momentum.

Also, the first half doesn’t reveal much about Prakash Roy except that he’s a billionaire, who is adamant about his co-passenger wearing a seat belt but has no qualms driving inebriated.

The film’s strength is its cinematography by Amarjeet Singh with Central London and its outskirts in full display. If the movie could have been trimmed by at least 20 minutes, it could have turned this watchable fare into a breezy feel-good movie.