A temporary mental condition in which someone is not completely conscious of and/or not in control of himself or herself; this is the Cambridge dictionary definition of the word trance. The latest Anwar Rasheed movie Trance, starring Fahadh Faasil as the main protagonist is trying to navigate through two layers. One is this anti-religious political angle that tries to expose the whole godmen concept and the second is something close to the definition of the word Trance I mentioned in the beginning. Even though it is not completely satisfying on first viewing, the way they have looked at the less explored zone is pretty interesting.









Viju Prasad, our hero aspires to be that motivational trainer and his major dream is to address an audience of above thousand. His family backdrop isn’t that pretty and there is a mental trauma from which he is trying to escape. Understanding Viju’s potential, two businessmen offer Viju a platform to be a pastor who does all these miracles (staged of course). The growth of Viju as that pastor and the obvious repercussions of this enormous growth is the content of Trance.

As I said in the beginning, there are two layers to this story. One is about the business they do in the name of religion. That’s a very superficial layer of this movie. We are somewhat familiar with that concept and Anwar Rasheed has presented that familiar terrain in a grand and believable way. The next layer has to do with the psyche of Viju Prasad who is now a much-evolved person. The religious business layer in the script by Vincent Vadakkan slowly becomes that ground for the second layer to play. Whether as a movie Trance will work for you or not depends on how you view that particular phase of the script. For me, it was a mixed bag with some interesting and predictable turn of events. That extremely personal side of Viju needed a slightly more gripping presentation. You do understand how the deaths he has seen in the past are affecting him and there is a connecting theme between him and Esther. But the whole videotape exposing had this usualness in its approach which kind of disappointed me.









Fahadh Faasil is simply outstanding as Viju Prasad. The way he portrays the transition of Viju Prasad to the Pastor is just charismatic. The confidence with which he approaches the crowd has helped the movie enormously in developing that believability. The growth of Viju is shown through a montage and it is purely the charm in his presentation of that character that makes us believe that he can be the owner of 2 private jets. Dileesh Pothan as Avarachan is hilarious and effective as his character has the grey shade also. Nazriya Nazim as Esther was a smart choice. The movie has given her a character that wasn’t really in her comfort zone and the story in a way demanded that inherent innocence in her performance. Gautham Menon and Chemban Vinod Jose don’t have a lot to do here, but the duo was able to create the required level of heft. Soubin Shahir as Mathew, Sreenath Bhasi as Viju’s brother and Vinayakan as Varghese may not have lengthy roles in terms of screen time, but their performances were impressive and those characters had significance in the whole story.

The kind of engagement Anwar Rasheed has managed to create here is actually pretty impressive. The scale of the movie increases exponentially as it goes forward and as a viewer, you won’t feel a sense of compromise. And a major reason for that is the exceptional cinematography by Amal Neerad. In the 170+ minute’s long film, you won’t feel like looking at somewhere else for a second and I am not talking about the usual glossy visuals here. The texture, tone, and grammar of the visuals changes according to the lifestyle and psyche of Viju Prasad. Quality is quite evident in the craft here and the crucial part of the movie isn’t something you can give a verdict in a single viewing. The scale wasn’t enough for the movie in the second half to have an impact. The familiar part of the story somewhere got dominance over the trance part and that disturbed the rhythm. The sound design here is impressive and so were the edits that played a key role in making the movie engaging. The original score is in absolute sync with the emotional highs and lows of the film and the songs are blended neatly into the narrative.







The way this movie ended, I kind of have a feeling that Trance is one of those movies that needs some time to grow on us; the kind of movie that needs to be viewed multiple times over a course of time. The approach of the movie is extremely bold and the visual treatment is also admirable. Trance may not be that perfect, but it’s definitely trying to push the boundaries in terms of choosing themes.