The Journey is about the life of lesbian Kiran who lives in a small village in India. Since childhood, Kiran has been best friends has with a girl named Delilah. As they approach adulthood, Kiran’s feelings turn romantic. She begins writing anonymous poems to Delilah confessing her love. Eventually, Delilah learns the author of the love poems she has received. To Kiran’s delight, Delilah doesn’t spurn her and the two embark on a relationship. However, the pressure for the girls to conform to societal standards and marry men looms large, especially after their relationship is discovered.
The film easily divides into three parts or acts. The first act is Kiran longing for Delilah unnoticed. The second is them actually embarking on a relationship. The third act is what happens when their relationship is discovered. Of these three acts, the first one is by far the best. During Kiran’s phase of silent longing, I acutely felt the sense of loneliness that could accompany being queer in this society. The danger also seemed more prescient here than when their relationship is actually discovered. I suppose it makes sense that the longing portion of the movie was the best. I would presume that like most of us, the director has the most experience pining in silence compared to actually engaging in relationships or having those relationships discovered.
The Journey feels like a very personal story from writer/director Ligy J. Pullappally. The film brims with passion and potential though not always refinement. There is a level of wish fulfillment present in the film that is extremely blatant. These characters are able to have a relationship and an ending that Pullappally clearly longs for and longed to see onscreen which is quite tragic. However, in adapting these wishes to the screen, it doesn’t always get past the simple act of representing a story the director wanted to tell. The directing can feel unavoidably basic and amateur. The editing and sound quality also come up short sometimes.
The film follows a lot of common beats for a WLW film. There isn’t much new here. I spent the film thinking of various other films The Journey reminded me of. Admittedly, most of these movies it reminded me of were released after The Journey. I suppose I could argue that maybe The Journey influenced all these similar films though I don’t think that’s the case. For one thing, I don’t think this was a widely enough seen movie to influence so many other filmmakers. For another, the reason The Journey reminded me of so many other films is that they are pretty standard and this film doesn’t always have a strong sense of its own goals beyond wanting to show representation. This is always a worthy goal but if it’s the main or only goal, it can make films feel like it lacks a level of identity.
The best part of the film is that nobody dies. The Journey opens with Kiran standing on the edge of a cliff, considering suicide so I thought for sure that would be how it ends. We get close to that but nope! Delilah yells Kiran’s name so loudly and passionately that even though they are not remotely within hearing distance of each other, Kiran hears Delilah and decides not to kill herself. That’s pretty nuts and all but I’ll take any reason at all for a movie to not have a lesbian kill herself at the end of it.
The Journey is a passionate, personal film that lacks a level of refinement. Much as I wanted to like this movie, the amateur quality to the directing hindered it. I still give it major points for subverting a lesbian committing suicide though.
Overall rating: 6/10
Other WLW films in similar genres
Indian movies
Childhood friends to lovers
i am sure u r a white women or at least definitely not a mallu.
i do feel like a lot of the criticism disregards the scene of kerala filmography in the early 2000s and almost more importantly how much (presumably western) sapphic influences have impacted it because western cinema was far from common in kerala to begin nor did many malayalees who travelled outside of kerala in that time access such influence. i also disagree with the idea that the point of this film was to show representation of women loving women because it is honestly quite far from it, perhaps even the opposite. i give you the due credit of going out of your way to watch this film but i hope you do recognize that your viewership as a nonmallu may tamper with the impact of this story.