Malayalam movie 2018: Everyone is a Hero has become India’s official entry for Oscars 2024. The Jude Anthany Joseph directorial was selected for the Best International Film category by a jury on Wednesday, September 27. Besides 2018, many Indian movies, including The Kerala Story, Gadar 2, and Mrs Chatterjee vs. Norway, were in the running to become India’s official entry to the prestigious award function before the Malayalam flick emerged victoriously. The 96th Oscars ceremony will take place in Los Angeles next year on March 10, 2024. Before the results are out, here’s everything that you need to know about the film.
What is 2018: Everyone is a Hero about?
This Tovino Thomas starrer film is a cinematic recreation of the catastrophic 2018 Kerala floods. The graphic images from the unprecedented rainfall that hit the state remain fresh in the memory of not just those who fell prey to the calamity but also the entire nation. Stakes were high for director Jude Anthany Joseph as he decided to touch a sensitive subject that left an emotional void in the hearts of the nation. It was inevitable that anything less than an authentic depiction of the calamity could be easily rejected by the masses. This is why the filmmaker fictionalized characters with basic and humble characters to fit into the plotline.
2018 introduced audiences with a set of parallel running stories who would later be at the centre of action when the floods began to wreak havoc in the state. Additional limelight was shed on the life of Anoop (played by Tovino Thomas), a scared man who fakes his health condition to abandon military service. The character graph of Anoop matures drastically as the film progresses. He goes on from being an ignorant and fearful bloke to turning brave and realizing his responsibilities in the hour of crisis.
Elsewhere in the film, the director doesn’t fail to hit the dramatic dials. Be it covering a child with special needs stuck neck-deep in water or the fisherman whose marriage proposal gets rejected by an arrogant man but the latter learns his lesson when fishermen arrive with their boats to save his family. The movie sincerely turned a reminder of the days when people in Kerala, irrespective of their background and status, came together to rescue those in distress. It was the humanitarian message of the film that struck a chord with moviegoers and eventually, 2018 began one of the highest-grossing Malayalam movies of the year.
Besides Tovino Thomas, actors Kunchacko Boban, Asif Ali, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Narain, and Lal paid their significant dues in the allotted screen time. 2018: Everyone is a Hero was released theatrically in May 2023.
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