When you are familiar with the tools of the trade of an auteur filmmaker, the question of why he can't make films like somebody else – someone more commercially celebrated – ends.

For Don Palathara, long takes are a staple. However, in his latest movie, 'Family,' Palathara might have used too many long takes to the point of monotony.

In 'Family,' Palathara goes into full arthouse mode, with the drama progressing at an incredibly slow pace. The movie tells the story of a close-knit Christian community in Kerala's high range district of Idukki, a familiar landscape for the filmmaker who grew up there.

Idukki, isolated and wild, was teeming with migrant Christians who left their large and extended families in the neighboring Kottayam district in the early 1950s. Palathara’s previous films, including his breakout indie '1956, Central Travancore,' were set in Idukki and explored the shades of Christian faith.

In 'Family,' the plot revolves around Sony, a member of the sect Knanaya, an endogamous ethnic group among Kerala's Syrian Christians. Palathara uses a mix of establishing sequences to introduce the character. Sony lends a hand to everyone, and his green motorcycle is a familiar sound in the sleepy village.

Sony knows exactly who to call if a cow falls into a trap for the leopard or how to climb a giant jackfruit tree to pluck fruits for aunties in the neighbourhood. An educated bachelor waiting patiently to land a teaching job he was promised by the church, Sony is a 'good Christian' and 'the beating heart of his rural Catholic community.'

The film opens with Sony taking home Subin, a teenager, on his motorcycle. As they enter the frame through a curvy tarmac, we listen to Subin curiously asking about a leopard sighting in the nearby village. Sony replies casually in the tone of a teacher that wild animals won't hurt anyone as long as someone tries to attack them.

Sony drops Subin at his home, gossips a little bit with his mother, and agrees to come back next week to teach Subin a poem for a competition at school. As Sony leaves, we see Subin in the bathroom. It is dark, but the mucky mirror on the wall clearly shows the reflection of an emotionless Subin. He carefully touches his lips and then moves his hand over his collarbone as if searching for a scar. This is the first sign that something sinister is lurking behind the god-fearing, church-going, and considerate man-next-door, Sony.

'Family,' as with Palathara's previous films, is a character study. The movie captures in fine detail how communities become cults; it exposes the natural death of shocks, and how conformity is the unwritten rule. However, it doesn't mean people are who they seem. Consider the example of Sony. He may be the most good-hearted youth in the village, but that doesn’t stop an aunty from saying, “Sometimes, Sony likes to exaggerate things.” And no secrets are safe, for the hills have eyes and ears. Sony's father wasn't joking when he warned him to stop roaming around with a woman who once eloped with another man. For Sony and his lover, their affair was a secret.

 The landscape is stunning. What makes it effective is Palathara's careful blend of the hilly terrain with the smells and sounds of memory. The cult surely is the Garden of Eden - It's green and meditative. In one scene, Palathara pumps the gas too hard, when he shows a harmless green snake slithers through the bushes as Sony and his lover share an embrace.

Except for a few more cliché shots, Palathara’s visual language is fluent. The screaming of crickets, the placid lakes, the humming of winds, the clarity of the All India Radio news broadcast, and that piece of advice about sending the eloped woman to an abortion clinic in Theni, you don't necessarily need to spend time in the high range to decode the mundane lives of people.

Vinay Forrt is effortless in his role as Sony. His natural guttural accent is effective and adds an additional layer to the character. Forrt is cunning, delivering a subtle performance that is so believable that at no point is Sony a likable character. Sony's brother is played by Mathew Thomas, who reprises a somber-faced role similar to 'Kumabalangi Nights.'

Thomas is a hero in his own merit without doing anything particularly heroic but merely keeping distance from Sony. Thomas' character, however, is not aware of the predatory instincts of Sony. It seems he has a general contempt for Sony and the dysfunctional family he grew up in. The rest of the cast too is stellar.

The boy who played the role of Subin gave an earnest and emotionally endearing performance. His boredom, yearning for affection, tears, and the eventual victimization are scathingly original. The discomfort that grows with the character is so painful to process even as everyone else pretends all is quiet in his world.

 The dialogue, written by Palathara and his collaborator Sherin Catherine, is realistic and straightforward. In a memorable scene, Sony cracks a joke, responding to the story of a young man describing his alleged encounter with the leopard. That joke was so predictable, lame, and so Sony-like it elicits laughs from his audience.

Palathara rarely uses music to dominate the setting. Most of his scenes are self-explanatory. In some challenging spaces, he allows traditional songs or verses of the Bible to fill in, creating a contrast between reality and dogma.

There are some notable slips in the production. The rain in the last scene was not realistic at all. If it was not VFX, the joke is on me. Some scenes were deliberately dragging, robbing away the natural pace of the situations. And the ending scene was very cold.

There’s only one scene where we see the elusive predator. A girl is stunned to see the four-legged beast just before her. The leopard is in all its glory, but like an apparition, it is playful as much as it is beautiful. As the girl stands still holding her breath, the leopard walks into the greenery. The predator on his motorcycle, however, is gifted a new grassland.

As the film closes, a looming question posed by a Letterboxd fan remains: Did Tony, a friend of Thomas whom Sony patronizes, write the PSC exam (for a government job)? Mocking as it may seem, this question shows the nuances of Palathara’s storytelling.

Rating: 3/5