10 years of Premam

In 2023, when I went to Kerala for the Kochi Biennale, I went to this place called Pepper House as part of the Biennale exhibition. As we entered the place, it almost seemed too familiar. Of course, I had never been to this place before (I checked with my parents), and yet somehow I knew this place existed in my mind. 

After much brain-wracking and a little investigation, I had my Eureka moment and realized that this was the place where Premam was shot. The bakery that Nivin Pauly owns in Fort Kochi in the third act of the movie was situated here. 

 

Excitedly, when I narrated this incident to my friend, he called me a fool for knowing so much about a random movie.
But Premam wasn't just a random movie. It was so much more than that.

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Premam completed 10 years since its release yesterday, and remembering its dialogues, songs — yes, even the café Nivin Pauly owned — is just a testament to how much Premam influenced an entire generation.

For a movie that had no pre-release buzz and no promotions, Premam broke all kinds of records at the box office. The songs were an instant hit, the actors were catapulted into the limelight, and the movie became what they called a sleeper hit! 

When Premam was released in 2014, I was a 14-year-old in school. Now, just shy of a quarter-century old, I wonder how Premam, having completed 10 years, still stands strong, finding a place in the heart of everyone who has watched it. What makes it so endearing? How do people still love that movie? Even now, 10 years after its release (yes, we're old), it still features in almost every top 10 Malayalam movies list you come across.

I think about what made Premam such a hit. 

It, of course, changed the culture in Kerala.
The cultural shift was evident in how boys made black shirts and mundus their go-to cool look, Rockankuthu was the number one song for Onam that year (and the coming years), Red Velvet Cake sales skyrocketed, and owning a bakery seemed like the ultimate dream for everyone (at least everyone I knew).  

It redefined love in cinema. Not larger-than-life romances with songs and background dancers, but ordinary love stories of ordinary people, where the boy didn't always get the girl. A coming-of-age story that blended so well with the Malayali audience and made it so relatable for everyone who watched it that even after 10 years, people still find themselves rewatching Premam without missing a beat.

So no, I’m not a fool for knowing the cafe from Premam. I’m just one of the millions who fell in love with a film that made falling in love feel so real.

Till the time we get a Nivin Pauly comeback, I'll go and watch Premam (again :p)