Padayaatra trailer: Mammootty plays doctor accused of sedition in Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s next

Padayaatra trailer: Mammootty reunites with Adoor Gopalakrishnan.

Padayaatra trailer: Days after his 75th birthday, Mammootty dropped the trailer of his upcoming film Padayaatra. The actor is all set to reunite with veteran filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan after a gap of 32 years for the movie. The Padma Bhushan awardee plays a doctor in the film, as shown in the one-minute 14-second trailer dropped on Saturday evening.

What’s in the Padayaatra trailer?

The trailer stars with Mammootty’s character waking up in the morning and leaving his house after stretching. When a character reminds him at his workplace, “Times are changing. And it calls for some compromises,” Mammootty responds with a grin, “Times don’t change. We do.” We then see people of a village speculate how Mammootty’s doctor character has “so much money.”

Meanwhile, the doctor goes on about his job, advising a woman patient to embrace change as her treatment. “When you get a chance to escape, don’t look back,” he says. A suspected Maoist attack leads to a chain of events, including the police investigating even the doctor during the case. “When there’s a complaint, we are dutybound to investigate,” says a cop, as we see the police flash a torchlight on Mammootty’s face. The end of the trailer hints that the charges levelled against him could even go up to sedition.

Mammootty, Gopalakrishan reunite after 33 years

Mammootty and Adoor Gopalakrishnan first collaborated for the 1987 psychological drama Anantaram. Also starring Ashokan and Shobhana, it fetched Gopalakrishnan two National Awards — for Best Direction and Best Screenplay. They teamed up again three years later with Mathilukal (1990), based on the life of Malayalam writer and freedom fighter Vaikom Muhammad Basheer.

That film not only won Gopalakrishnan the National Award for Best Direction, it also fetched Mammootty his maiden National Award. Mathilukal also won the National Award for Best Regional Film (Malayalam).

Their most recent collaboration was 32 years ago — Vidheyan (1994), where the actor played an exploitative landlord. That film also fetched Mammootty his second National Award for Best Actor, as well as claimed the Best Feature Film in Malayalam honour.

After winning his first two National Awards for Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s films, Mammootty went on to win his third for Jabbar Patel’s 2000 period film Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, based on the life of the Father of the Constitution of India. This month, Mammoootty is all set to receive his fourth National Award, which he won after a gap of over two decades, for Rahul Sadasivan’s 2024 period folk horror film Brahmayugam.

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In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, Mammootty hinted that Padayaatra, is inspired from a true story. “I have even met a doctor in Wayanad. He takes his scooter with his wife and medicines. He goes to the forest and treats people,” said the actor, describing it as a “content-oriented film.”

Also Read: Mammootty at 75: The man, the myth and the Malayalam cinema star

With Padayaatra, Adoor Gopalakrishnan also returns to direction a decade after Pinneyum (2016). “I was in doubt as to why I should make a film when it cannot be seen in a cinema hall. I almost stopped thinking about making a film,” the veteran filmmaker told India Today recently. “He is probably the only actor who has been repeated in so many of my films, four out of the 13 films I have made,” he added, referring to his storied collaboration with Mammootty over the past four decades.