Spoilers ahead…
The story is set during the COVID lockdown, and both the characters and the narrative fall into place slowly, steadily – like the exquisite writing of how two young people fall in love.
A bunch of people land up at an event. It’s a betrothal ceremony, but the bride is not smiling. She has plans to study further, get a job – and she certainly does not want to go abroad and settle down wherever the husband-to-be is working. During and just after the church ceremony, we meet three kinds of youngsters. We meet the meek bride who says “I do” before the priest, for the sake of her parents, who “own” her. We meet her rebellious younger sister, who yells at their parents for “committing a crime” by forcing – or emotional-blackmailing – their way through this engagement. The older and younger sisters are named Merin and Mini, and are played by Athulya V and a spirited Haniya Nafia. They are rich. They come from a plantation-owning family, which is also a feudal family. At one point, Mini asks why most of their family lives abroad. Maybe it was a means of escaping this oppression. Or maybe many of them were like Merin, and just could not say no to the people who “owned” them.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/malayalam/movie/review/o-baby/
And you can watch the trailer / video review here:
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