Is Innale Vare a cautionary tale about technology? Or is it a cautionary tale about human behaviour? The first thing we see in Jis Joy's film is a piece of technology: a computer screen. We hear an interview of a film star played by Asif Ali – and we see clips of this interview being manipulated on a laptop. I'll make up an example. Let's say the line is "I am not a bad actor." If you clip out the word "not", the line becomes "I am a bad actor." So yes, the film's scariest aspect is the way it shows how vulnerable we are when it comes to modern technology. I don't know if the lightning-fast manipulations in Bobby-Sanjay's script are truly possible, but they add to the point about how a skilled hacker with a revenge motive can really ruin your life.
Now, the point about human behaviour. The Asif Ali character is a poor excuse for a human being. He acts entitled. He is prone to bursts of ba temper. He cheats on his girlfriends. He is in a lot of debt due to his recent flops, and yet he cannot bring himself to empathise with a producer who is in debt from a film he made long ago with this actor. He is not an evil man, exactly – but he shows little awareness of or remorse for his actions, which end up hurting a lot of people. As the saying goes, karma is a bitch. And it bites him with a vengeance when… Ah, I cannot say anything more, except that the script takes a sharp left turn and becomes a survival thriller that in turn serves as a cautionary tale about human behaviour. Be nice to people. Or else…
Innale Vare has superb performances from Asif Ali and Nimisha Sajayan, who plays a middle-class woman who has something in common with the film star: she has a lot of debt, too. And she is as desperate as Asif Ali is. Both of them are threatened by the people who loaned them money. This layer is interesting, because it becomes an invisible thread binding two people whose worlds are wide apart. The cast includes Antony Varghese, who is also part of the puzzle – but the writers are the real stars. Building up a thriller is half the struggle. The "how will they end it" question is the other half. Both are satisfactory in this engaging film, whose highlight is an animalistic struggle between two people that could well be a metaphor for the survival of the fittest. It's a jungle out there. Only, the animals are bits and bytes.