The Goat Life” is a Malayalam survival-drama film which revolves around the life of Najeeb
Muhammed. This film is adapted from the 2008 best-selling Malayalam novel “Aadujeevitham”
by Benyamin which is based on the real incident. The story is about an Indian immigrant
worker, Najeeb Muhammed, who leaves behind his wife, mother and his unborn child and
goes from the lush green lands of Kerela to a desert country in the middle-east in search of a
better life. Najeeb always dreamt of working in Gulf states and earn enough money to send
back home.
As a twist of fate, Najeeb is forced into hard labour on a goat farm in middle of the desert.
He gets stuck their for years, loses all hope and his very identity. Najeeb literally battles with
extreme alien climatic and living conditions where he is cut off from his family and everyone
who speaks his language. As he battles with both inner and outer demons, along with just
goats and camels for friends. Najeeb won’t remember even how many years has passed away
living in the desert. Najeeb emabrarks on a war with his destiny.
Years pass, and suddenly one day Najeeb meets his friend Hakim, who travelled with him to
gulf and was separated by the sheiks. Hakim brings an African man to escape and wants
Najeeb to join them. Three of them escape from their herds and starts their journey from
desert to road.
Will they reach the road? How was their journey? Did Najeeb reach his home finally? These
questions are to be answered in this survival drama.
Aadujeevitham is a survival-drama which captures the hellish experience of the lead character
which deliver the emotional quotient so perfectly rather than melodramatic scenes. The film
mainly focus on the main character Najeeb played by Prithviraj Sukumaran. The film worked
out very well for me because of it’s three pillars – Director Blessy, who brilliantly conveyed
the story with an engaging screenplay where there is no room for the boredom to the
audience. Blessy was loyal to Benyamin’s story and also expands certain emotional parts that
hooks the audience a little more. Blessy chose a slow narration rather than pacing the
screenplay, which registers each frame and each emotion of the charcaters with bristling life.
The second pillar, Prithviraj Sukumaran takes the film to another level with his mind-blowing
performance. He commits completely to the Najeeb’s character and literally transforms himself
into Najeeb and takes us with his entire journey of hellish experience. We might have seen so
many great characters played by Prithviraj but Najeeb is the best among and will be remained
in the history of Malayalam cinema. The character arc of Najeeb is very impressive, the various
stages of his journey and watching the physical transformation of Prithviraj makes us feel
tormented of one of a kind misery. The third pillar is the Music by A R Rahman is wide-ranging
yet soothing scores highlights the tragedy of Najeeb’s heart-wrenching survival journey. To
be honest, Aadujeevitham is Rahman’s finest and magnificient work in setting the film’s tone.
The best thing Rahman does is the use of ‘Periyone’ song prompts in different places in the
story-telling. Other casts, Amala Paul was decent in her given role but the special mention to
Jimmy Jean Louis, one of the producers who also played a character named Ibrahim Khadri
delivers a fantastic performance as the fellow traveller in Najeeb’s journey. Also shoutout to
Gokul who played Hakim, Najeeb’s friend, he makes the audience feels broken for his
character.
The editing could be little crisp as the runtime is almost 3hrs, which makes audience slightly
bored despite of curiosity of what happens next. Cinematography by Sunil K is excellent,
especially the color palette used is brilliant and his yellow hues is cleverly put that it never lets
Najeeb out of the audience sight. Every frame does convey the emotion the director wants
to. Close up shots are the best.
Can we watch it in theatres?
As said, this film is caters mostly the niche audience, because of it slow-paced narration,
general audience wouldn’t enagage to this survival drama.
