Becoming someone else in an afternoon slumber and totally dissolving into the other leaving all around in surprise and shock, and for a second in doubt of his past. Enveloping the audience in a Deja Vu as James, who was returning home from a pilgrimage with his family and drama troupe, Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam transports the unreal into the real. We are magically led by the king of chaos – director Lijo Jose Pellissery once again. But someone outshines his directorial this time transforming into Sundaram who left his village two years ago leaving no clue even to his family is superstar Mammootty delivering another career-best like in his recent roles. In Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam, I am ported to another world by Mammootty and cinematographer Theni Eswar with his quirky shots capturing a meditative village in its total naivety.

Getting off the bus, James walks past a field, a big tree, and all inroads of that village heading to a fixed place. Reaching there, he suddenly changes his dhoti and wearing style, feeds the cow, and enters his home, seeing his wife taking a nap. Invoked by her husband’s call, the woman (Lijo never pays attention to close-up feelings of women- not a good deal) gets up and sees him behaving exactly like Sundaram in the kitchen. From then, Sundaram is thriving in all pockets of the village riding his moped, vividly telling stories, trying to sell milk, and enacting Sivaji Ganesan in a local bar. Eswar‘s camera is eager to follow him creating a hallucinating effect between dream and reality.

I am taken aback by the mesmerizing performance of Mammootty in a long scene where he sentimentally convinces the villagers he is one among them and the heartbroken moment he realizes a glitch in his behavior. Total command over the Tamil accent and the character’s death-birth flight.

Just like the young man on the bus contemplates- we never know how we would connect to a strange place and people in no time- The whole world’s a drama. So, James and Sundaram can be one or two playing their due parts.