Sarvam Maya - The Friendly Ghost

 

 

 

 Sarvam Maya

2026, Malayalam

Genre: Fantasy Comedy

 

Director: Akhil Satyan

Stars: Nivin Pauly, Riay Shibu, Aju Varghese, Janardhanan, Preity Mukundan, Vineeth

 

Mohan's Measure ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

I would be the first to shriek at the sight of a Gen Z girl popping into my home with no notice to steal my phone.  All the worse if I were to discover she was supernatural.

Sarvam Maya is a breezy, whimsical tale of other-worldly friendship that results in a very human understanding about life, love and the Sacred.  Mr. Pauly does a fine job playing Prabhendu, an agnostic Brahmin priest who still performs rituals with sincerity. One of his congregants asks him to perform an exorcism, which he does to perfection.  Upon returning home, however, he finds the spirit follows him, winding up in his bedroom to do what Gen Z-ers do best - scroll social media for hours on end, usually using someone else's phone.

Fear not.  Fresh-faced and innocent, Ms. Shibu does a super job as going from ghostly apparition to friendly muse of the priest, whose actual passion is to become a musician.  Through the holp of his newfound friend, Delulu (short for delusion), Prabhendu finds inspiration to do just that, and along the way, regains a long-lost love for life.  The chemistry the actors share is refreshing and home spun. It reminds us of our teenage days hanging out with our buddies. Ms. Shibu's facial expressions are captivating at times, parred only by the witty retorts by Mr. Pauly

It is in trying to explain it all, however, at least to the point that everything comes to closure that the plot weakens, making the otherwise overlooked holes in the story come to fore. The nice, summer afternoon pace of the first half makes the second feel rushed, as though it were contrived. It is clearly out of place in an otherwise well presented film. But the genuine warmth and humanity of the first half leave us with a smile.