Film - Dhevi is weird and camp
Dhevi opens with a jarring AI sequence following a chicken running, towards where only Allah knows, for some minutes before ending up on a horrified Kopee Isse’s face. Rishmee is giving birth, hauntingly and clearly possessed. Perhaps this is why our birthrates have plummeted. I’ll forgive this movies blatant and atrocious use of AI for the sake of this seasoned cast. Some of the side characters not so much. But hey, the midwife looks horrified in a believable way.
After a laboured and questionable labour influenced by spiritual forces that somehow ends with a jinn being passed down from a mother’s vagina to an innocent infant, great genes and great hereditary traits. The movie was inflicted with musical numbers that acted as timelapses to reserve many minutes to jarringly long drawn conversations of bobbleheads. Through these meanderings, the movie introduces two siblings; Stud Sr and Stud Jr.
After a corny dialogue delivery in the classic Dhivehi melodramatic tone the movie cuts through to show Stud Sr and an angry boo thang in a car. They seem to have broken up, good riddance, this break up couldn’t have been more unrealistic and cliche at the same time with Stud Jr waving one cash note at his boo thang after an active night. It gets established that these are brothers inflicted with the hereditary disease of being red flag men who only see women as items to own and discard.
The two fellas freshly single, head out of home turf Malé to catch more victims. This time, in this overly obvious movie, the stud siblings are going to meet their respective new boo thangs. Another song or two later and we meet Azza playing double roles as Rishmee’s twin daughters. Stud Jr proves to be lethal, getting absolutely enamoured of Rashu Twin. This song sequence was one of the most reactive the audience got, with shouts of “amaiyaa!”. The crowd loses it more as Rashu Twin takes charge and sink Stud Jr into the salt waters of passion, literally and metaphorically. Even the lyrics say “jazubaathuge thikithah”.
The following night Stud Jr asks Rashu Twin pleadingly, “kihineh vee thundeega?”
“Kon kameh nuvanee” one member of the audience shouts and we snicker together in the short silence before jinni Azza twin could reply, “furolhilann”. More “oohs” and “aahs” followed with laughter.
Just before climax part 2, the audience goes: “Lanka sis abadhu rovifa ennu” as Azza appears on screen weeping yet again. I get to gather from seasoned cinema goers that Azza takes on roles where her character is in some sort of weepy distress. We get another throwback in compensation for the prior timelapses.
The good twin and bad twin trope is just a smoke screen for blatant justification of child abuse. As soon as Twin Jr hits puberty in an ominous sequence we see the father attempt to maintain her “iffai theri”-ness as warned by Mudhimbe 1. Through schemes and chains the Twin Jr grows up in captivity while Twin Sr parties it up in Lanka. It’s a dumbed-down idea of modern-day youth pursuing education abroad. While Twin Sr is modern in dressing, Twin Jr is in kurtas, red ones to ensure the audience knows which is the evil twin.
The reunification peaks with an exorcism with the most unbothered, unfazed and chill Mudhimbe cooly reciting whispers of prayer. I enjoyed this character quite greatly for these reasons. Evil Twin Jr dies a twisted way just like the mother who birthed her. The audience remain unbothered, unfazed and chill aside for the laughter and cringe commentary.
Somehow Azza seems to have a lizard under her skin and the audience audibly echoes disgust as we watch the lizard crawl up one of her orifices as implied and would later be proven truer with evidence. The lizard gets expelled out of her mouth after Maniku does some voodoo hoodoo with a bottle of dye and starch which stains his finger after he licks it off. The audience groans once again.
The movie then cuts to an item number to introduce the saviour character whom I will name Final Fanditha Boss, since this movie cared little to give character background or build genuine depth that would incite emotions from me. The song skirted along a copyright to the famed Bhool Bhulaiyya song Ami Je Tomar (Mere Dholna).
Aamira appears as Evil Maniku in his dhevi climax to save us from the bore of an ending with no surprises. This was a multigenerational curse tied to evil Maniku’s greed over Rishmee. The scorn landed on Rishmee, passed down to her youngest and now shifted to the oldest. This entire family in spiritual warfare over decades just because one man had a “Dhevihifunn” to a girl who rejected him. The moves which apprentice Maniku pulled on screen is something I had read as a child.
Once again this is a movie of Islamic mysticism and sorcery used for the whims of a man and his fickle wants. None of this would have happened if Maniku was not an incel.
Tonight I endured a horror beyond my expectations. Not in terms of horror as a genre, more fearful for the genre. Dhevi translates directly to an imaginary demon/beast or an obsession with a passion akin to an addiction. This movie is somehow all of these. Its only redeeming grace would be to relinquish its claim to horror entirely and declare itself as camp instead. This movie has misled its audience who bought tickets with the hopes of witnessing some adrelenine kicking fear induced cinema.
After I had endured this dhevihifunn, I saw an advertisement for island perfumes with Azza, who had ripped off her scalp in a mad frenzy, promoting fragrances. Till the bitter cliche end and a milked out promise of part two and a trilogy perhaps, this was one campy horror. Good for laughs, nothing else.
