Draft:Iyer In Arabia

Iyer In Arabia is a Malayalam language comedy film, directed by M. A. Nishad, starring Mukesh, Urvasi, Dhyan Sreenivasan, Shine Tom Chacko and Durga Krishna in lead roles. It was initially named Iyer Kanda Dubai. It was theatrically released on 2 February 2024.

Summary
Iyer In Arabia is a movie which showcases a family journey to the Middle East. The film is filled with sarcastic humour. Iyer is an orthodox Brahmin who clings onto his traditional beliefs. His wife, Jhansi rani, on the other hand is a history professor and an atheist. Their son who is a normal straightforward guy goes to the Middle east for a job. Iyer finds out that his son is involved with a girl from a different religion and has plans of marrying her.

He travels to the Middle East with his wife to put an end to his son’s dreams. A series of incidents that take place in the Middle East open Iyer’s eyes to a whole new world and he is forced to change his regressive beliefs. The mistakes that Iyer commit in thought and deed while in the Middle East are sarcastically portrayed in the film. The contrast between the thoughts of a rigid believer and an atheist are humorously depicted in this movie.

Cast

 * Mukesh as Sreenivasa Iyer
 * Urvasi as Jhansi Rani
 * Dhyan Sreenivasan as Rahul
 * Shine Tom Chacko as Freddy
 * Durga Krishna as Zahra
 * Dayana Hameed as Tania
 * Biju Sopanam
 * Jaffar Idukki
 * Sudheer Karamana
 * Sunil Sukhada
 * Alencier Ley Lopez
 * Maniyanpilla Raju
 * Uma Nair
 * Divya M Nair
 * Sinoje Siddique
 * Kailash
 * Jayakumar Parameshwaran Pillai

Soundtrack
The music was composed by Anand Madhusoodanan, with lyrics written by Rafeeq Ahamed, Manu Manjith, Harinarayanan B K, Prabha Varma.

Critical response
Swathi P Ajith of OTTPlay gave 3 out of 5 stars and wrote,The standout performances come from Mukesh and Urvashi, who convincingly play parents and excel in handling both comedy and drama, making their performance the movie's strongest aspect. While Dhyan doesn't have a significant role, he performs decently in the film. Shine Tom Chacko's role in the movie is not very convincing, contrary to the expectations one might have from him.

Although the movie started with a promising theme, it deviated from its path by following cliches, leaving the audience with a sense of disconnect. Director M A Nishad'swell-intentioned efforts to incorporate feel-good elements seemed somewhat forced and didn't seamlessly integrate into the story Despite these shortcomings, certain comedic elements, like Mukesh's character attempting to spy on his son with a fake Facebook ID, were indeed really funny.

The film does have some enjoyable aspects, making it worth a one-time watch.Also, the reunion of Mukesh and Urvashi in this movie is another fact that may attract audiences to give it a try.