| Love | |
| Director: | Khalid Rahman |
| Producer: | Ashiq Usman |
| Screenplay: | Khalid Rahman Noufal Abdullah |
| Starring: | Shine Tom Chacko Rajisha Vijayan |
| Music: | Neha Nair Yakzan Gary Pereira |
| Cinematography: | Jimshi Khalid |
| Editing: | Noufal Abdullah |
| Studio: | Aashiq Usman Productions |
| Country: | India |
| Language: | Malayalam |
Love is a 2020 & 2021 Indian Malayalam-language slasher psychological thriller film[1] written and directed by Khalid Rahman and produced by Ashiq Usman under the banner of Ashiq Usman Productions. The film stars Shine Tom Chacko and Rajisha Vijayan in the lead roles.[2]
Love marks the tenth project of Ashiq Usman and third film of Khalid Rahman after Unda and Anuraga Karikkin Vellam.[3] The film is co-written and edited by Noufal Abdullah. The music is composed by Yakzan Gary Pereira and Neha Nair, while Jimshi Khalid was hired as the cinematographer.[4]
The movie begins when Deepthi is doing scanning and the doctor confirms that she is eight weeks pregnant. Her husband Anoop gets a text message "I am pregnant", but he continues to play a violent video game. Deepthi reaches home, and soon they both start arguing. The fight turns violent, and Anoop pushes Deepthi against their picture on the wall, and she immediately collapses. Confused, Anoop decides to commit suicide and tries to cut his nerves using a shaving blade, and then he hears a ring on the door. He takes Deepthi's body to the bathroom.
At the door, it was Anoop's friend, and he starts talking about his life's problems and starts drinking of what was left in the bottle Anoop was having. Anoop tries to console his friend, saying that he has to talk out the indifferences with his wife. Apparently, he doubts his wife is having an affair with his partner and the partner is trying to steal all his money by cheating him in their combined business. His wife is blaming him for not having kids, but when Anoop says he had already impregnated his earlier girlfriend and his friend replies that he cannot tell that to his wife and prove himself, he wants to commit suicide because he is fed up with life, but after speaking to Anoop, he changes his mind and decides to kill his partner instead.
Meanwhile, another of Anoop's friends comes home with his girlfriend and tells Anoop that they both need to spend half an hour in their bedroom. While the friend and his girlfriend are talking in the room, the girlfriend receives a message from a guy, and he gets annoyed. He asks her to immediately delete all messages and stop talking to him. Meanwhile, he gets a call from his wife and starts questioning him where he is. He denies that he is with his girlfriend and that he does not have any contact with her. That starts a fight between them, and the girlfriend leaves, saying that she does not want to be a casual partner for him.
Deepthi's father comes home to meet Anoop. He tries to talk about his daughter's problems, but Anoop is not interested. Anoop also says he has no financial issues. When the dad asks him if he physically abuses his wife, Anoop says that he has the rights to do whatever to his wife. Her dad slaps Anoop and says he is Anoop's dad and he also has the rights and leaves. The two friends see this from the balcony, but they stop themselves in interfering because it is Anoop's personal matter.
Anoop hears a knock on the door again, and when he opens it, he sees Deepthi. Deepthi enters the house, but now the house is clean as if nothing happened. Soon, the fight turns fierce. Deepthi accuses Anoop for having an affair and also being irresponsible in this business ventures and losing all the money. From the conversation, we can understand that the two friends who are at his home are not two outside people, but multiple personalities of Anoop itself. One of them wants to kill Deepthi, while the other says no. Finally, Anoop hits Deepthi on her head with an iron box, and she collapses.
In the final scene of the movie, we see a car which gets stopped by police for checking. We see Deepthi on the driving seat, who confesses that she killed her husband and the body is in the trunk. It is left to the viewer to guess how Anoop was killed.
After the success of Unda, Khalid Rahman announced that the next film will have Rajisha Vijayan and Shine Tom Chacko in lead roles. Both were collaborated with him in his previous films. He also informed that additional cast includes Veena Nandakumar, Sudhi Koppa, Johny Antony, and Gokulan M.S.[5] Principal cinematography started on June 22, 2020, in Kochi, adhering to COVID-19 protocol guidelines.[6] On July 15, the crew informed that the film shoot has completed and it only took 23 days.[7]
Love was released in United Arab Emirates on 15 October 2020.[8] Love is the first Malayalam film to release in UAE cinemas after a long spell owing to restrictions to contain the coronavirus outbreak.[9] The film released in Kerala on 29 January 2021.[10]
Love has been streaming on Netflix since 19 February 2021.[11]
Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion South wrote "Love is tricky, and therefore, Love is tricky, too. It flips around genres like mad: it’s a narcissistic murder mystery like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope mixed with a psychological black comedy like David Fincher’s Fight Club mixed with a domestic-abuse drama like Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad".[12]
A Tamil adaptation with the same title was released in 2023 with Bharath and Vani Bhojan in the lead roles. The Tamil remake is directed by RP Bala.[13]