Malayalam cinema has mastered the art of being not larger than life. Its characters are not saving the world, the nation or even the state. They are just there, like you and I, working their way to make a living, love and joke around with friends at the local bar.
We are these everyday characters. When a common man sees someone like Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Photograph (2019), finding his way through the streets of Mumbai and falling in love while clicking photographs, or Manoj Bajpayee in Aligarh (2015), simply trying to live his life with dignity, he sees a reflection of himself on screen. These characters are not saving the world or doing anything extraordinary. They are just trying to make sense of life, dealing with rejection, loneliness, love and the everyday struggles that come with being human. And sometimes, that is enough. You do not need to be a superhero or change the world to have a story worth telling.
And that is why Malayalam cinema is so good. Take Drishyam, one of the most successful film franchises, with adaptations in over seven languages. The protagonist is a cable operator who loves films, and now he uses that knowledge to save his family. The world does not depend on him. This is believable: a common man trying to save his family. The Hindi remake of Drishyam worked because Ajay Devgn’s Vijay Salgaonkar remained an ordinary cable operator using his love for films to save his family. It proved that a common man does not need to become a superhero to deliver a blockbuster.
Real, not larger than life
It is not that Malayalam cinema does not make mass films. It absolutely does. Take Mohanlal in Lucifer (2019) or Fahadh Faasil in Aavesham (2024). But the difference is that even when Malayalam cinema goes larger than life, it does not abandon its roots. The mass heroes are not just people in shiny clothes, surrounded by CGI and explosions. They are rooted in their surroundings, dealing with local politics, wearing ordinary clothes and fighting in local bars that look like places you and I might have visited. Their heroism feels like an exaggeration of a real person, not a superhero imported from another dimension.
But when Bollywood does mass films, it often strips away this cultural specificity. The common man disappears, replaced by a hero with a perfect hairline, well-ironed clothes. And when Bollywood takes an everyman character, the common man, it sprinkles Bollywood masala on him, turning him into a dashing superhero.
We see a person doing everything for his family, then getting out of control. The difference can be seen clearly in Ajay Devgn’s Singham (2011), where he fights not just for himself but for an entire village, taking on a powerful politician and his criminal network. He performs dangerous stunts with his Scorpio and takes on groups of men single-handedly, turning the fight against corruption into a larger-than-life spectacle.
The best example to examine this is Prem Keetanu (2026), an official remake of the Malayalam film Premalu (2024). The original film Premalu succeeded precisely because it did not try too hard. Its college life was not exaggerated, its struggles were not romanticised, and its treatment of love and rejection was not loud or over the top. It was simple, awkward, relatable and honest.
Prem Keetanu takes those same ingredients, adds the familiar Bollywood masala, makes everything bigger and louder, and in the process destroys the very simplicity that gave Premalu its charm. Premalu feels like a story that is happening to ordinary young people. But like other masaledar Bollywood films, Keetanu wants us to believe that our college, love, rejection and friendship were wrong and not real, and that what they are showing us is the correct version. It is basically a Student of the Year middle-class version, without Dharma Productions.
Malayalam cinema’s superstars are playing these everyday characters. Mammootty plays a projectionist who runs an old touring talkies in Kaazhcha (2004), a rice merchant in Pranchiyettan and the Saint (2010), and a retired cooperative bank employee in Kaathal – The Core (2023). Fahadh Faasil plays a small-town studio photographer in Maheshinte Prathikaaram (2016), a petty thief in Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (2017), and an engineering dropout in Joji (2021). The treatment of these characters is not just about giving them a profession. Their occupations and everyday lives play significant roles in the movies.
When was the last time a Bollywood superstar like Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan played an everyman character without doing something extraordinary? There will be no film about Salman Khan playing a college dropout working at a grilled chicken shop. And if that ever happened, he would probably turn out to be a RAW agent disguised as a dropout.
Bollywood has had actors playing everyday characters; it was Mr Everyman, Amol Palekar, from Rajnigandha (1974) to Chhoti Si Baat (1976). He was just a man roaming around the streets of Mumbai, finding love and understanding what life is. Then there was Irrfan Khan in The Lunchbox, Manoj Bajpayee, who played a terminally ill retired police constable in Bhonsle (2018) and an English professor in Aligarh (2015), and Rajkummar Rao in Newton and Trapped. But these films are critically acclaimed, not box-office hits.
Animal earned big at the box office, but that does not make it a critically acclaimed film. Malayalam everyman films like Drishyam and Premalu are also hits, so it’s not that realism doesn’t sell.
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When Manoj Bajpayee played Inspector Zende (2025) in a Netflix film of the same name, he spoke about his love for playing everyday characters.
“I enjoy doing these roles, I enjoy playing common people because I relate to them. Each and every character that I read, I feel like I have seen them somewhere in real life, in a documentary, in my initial days in Mumbai, in the train,” he said.
I believe these are the characters we see around us every day, people who struggle with work, fall in love and deal with rejection. When I see someone like me on screen, I find a part of my own life in their story. Not every man needs to save the world; sometimes, a human simply trying to make his life better is a story worth telling.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)