Why Drishyam’s first half had lags, Jeethu Joseph explains

If we take a list of the ten best thrillers that were released in the past decade or so in Indian cinema, Malayalam’s Drishyam will certainly be one among them. From the outset it might look like a plain family drama but it’s an edge of a seat thriller that keeps the audience guessing till the moment Mohanlal comes out of the police station.

Drishyam was the story of Georgekutty and his family. At a particular point, the family comes face to face with a situation that can ruin all their lives, how they get themselves out of it forms the crux of the story. The movie’s initial half revolved around the family and their day to day lives. But many complained that those portions it was too slow.

The movie’s director Jeethu Joseph in a recent interview opened up why he purposefully used the lags. He wanted to establish the family and their lives slowly so that the audience will root for them when they face a problem. That’s exactly how it turned out to be. Though many people complained that the first half was very lengthy and slow, it was actually the opposite. The initial half was only 1 hour long while the second half had a duration of 1.45 hours.

In the Hindi version of Drishyam, they chopped off a few scenes in the beginning. The crime occurs almost thirty movies into the plot while in the original it took nearly an hour. So many actually felt that the family attachment did not work out properly.

Jeethu Joseph believes that lags are a must in movies but a filmmaker’s talent lies in judging the duration of the lags. He also added that all his movies will have lags but only where he feels it’s necessary.

Drishyam was a massive blockbuster and emerged as the highest grossing Malayalam of all time before Pulimurugan toppled it. The movie was remade in all major Indian languages with Jeethu himself directing the Tamil verison, Papanasam with Kamal Haasan.