Half an hour into Jeethu Joseph’s Neru, almost all the cards are on the table, unlike the filmmaker’s previous outings. We know almost everything about the crime. We know the accused, and the court proceedings have started. No groundbreaking reveal happens in the two hours that follow, as we have come to expect in his films. Yet, it leaves one with a sense of satisfaction.
The best of Jeethu’s films rely on powerful ideas, which often helped to mask the other inadequacies, even in Drishyam, where the domestic sequences before the crime were quite bland. Neru, too, has one compelling idea at its heart, the challenges faced by Sara (Anaswara Rajan), a blind rape victim, in identifying the accused and in convincing the world that her other senses can make up for the lack of eyesight. This one idea is powerful enough to sustain the film, even when it is close to sagging.
The way she identifies him is quite a story. No less is the manner in which it is ripped apart in court and used for character assassination in sequences which mirror some high profile trials. Neru is also the story of redemption of Vijayamohan (Mohanlal), a down and out lawyer who hasn’t been in court for a long time after being suspended from the bar. Ranged against him are the powerful forces, a rich business group and their high-flying lawyer Rajasekhar (Siddique), with whom Vijayamohan has some history.
