Malayalam film, Vaasthavam, is about the games played in the corridors of power. Director M Padmakumar, who recently made the unusual police drama Vargam, gives us another grand vision. Vargam gave Prithviraj a landmark movie, and so expectations were quite high.

Balachandran Adiga (Prithviraj) faces a lot of family responsibility. His father has lost everything due to socialist leanings and his four sisters are yet to be married. For the betterment of his family, he has to marry Surabhi (Samvrutha) to clinch a job in the State Secretariat. But his heart is with his childhood love, Sumitra (Kavya Madhavan [Images]).

Once in Thiruvananthapuram, Balachandran learns the ropes of wheeling and dealing under the tutelage of Unnithan Asan (Jagathy Sreekumar), whom he refers to as the encyclopaedia of Kerala [Images] history. Balachandran makes rapid progress to be in the personal staff of the newly appointed Revenue Minister (Murali) by having an illicit liaison with his niece Vimala (Sindhu Menon), who also happens to be his colleague.

From here, the story takes us through the recent happenings in state politics, be it the killing of Adhivasis in forest region to the hooliganism at Group Convention of a political party. The scriptwriter tries to encompass everything that is fresh in our memory and link it to Balachandran's tale. We can sit through most of it, but only up to a point.

Prithviraj plays his part with conviction, but it is not an out-and-out winner like Vargam's Solomon Joseph. His character here is inconsistent.

The other notable actor is Jagathy Sreekumar. With his peculiar accent, he becomes the soul of the first half of the film.

The three heroines are competent, though we wonder why Kavya Madhavan's voice was dubbed.

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