Charlie (2015)

Tessa

Tessa's character opens new perspectives every time I watch Charlie. An ecstatic woman who's wild and carefree runs away from home to escape from an arranged marriage, but this view changes as the movie progresses. Locked away in a corner of fort Kochi facing the harbour, is an apartment that previously belonged to the protagonist Charlie.

She is intrigued by a story that she finds at this old rusty apartment with odd pictures and junk that's turned to jazz. Tessa finds a polaroid picture of a man with a bunch of kids and she sets herself on a venture in finding him. Now, this very scene here makes me think about the woman I'm seeing on screen. From what her mother tells her back home, we understand that she's probably an architect or an artist. She comes to Kochi, to meet a friend and finds a flat for herself. She then joins a music school to not be idle (maybe), and from this, we pretty much understand that this woman has no plans on returning home. That's when Tessa finds a story and is fascinated by the narration (or was it the narrator). The story cuts off abruptly and something lures her on finding the missing pieces.

Well, the night before she finds the story, she receives an anonymous call from the landline of the apartment she moved into. The voice on the other end talks in riddles and calls himself a "Jinn" she realises its Charlie and asks him to pick up his stuff from the room. On the background of Charlie's voice, we hear a Sufi song that plays softly, once the call ends she hears the same song outside her window. From her balcony, she looks out to see Sufis dancing on a terrace with string lights while a boat moves to its deck on the harbour.

Now, from the beginning we find Tessa running away from a forced arranged marriage and her family's confinement. but, slowly we see her obsession towards Charlie leading her to make choices, which in turn makes us believe that everything we learned about her wasn't completely true. It wasn't really about the arrange marriage but about herself. She wanted a life of freedom and excitement. For that, the only way was to follow someone whom she pictured as a gipsy soul. She also reassures this to Kani (another character) that it wasn't about the story but the person. Weaving all these little details brings us to the conclusion that, Tessa wasn't going to be happy with her normal life and she had to fix herself to someone who would set her free.

Charlie and Tessa - on a truck in Pushkar (ending scene)

Charlie

Portrayed as a magical central character who spreads joy and happiness around, as it might seem, this manic pixie guy isn’t just all about that, but a lot more. I’ll begin with the end of the film. Charlie leaves a word for Tessa to find him at the Thrissur Pooram. Tessa finds him pretty quickly among the crowd but with a rather dramatic introduction. She finally gets to meet the mystical guy who conspired her into following him. (Now there are three instances as to why I chose to use the word conspired)

Charlie confidently spots her in the crowd and immediately calls out her name. (they have never met before, hint 1). He then goes on to introduce her as Tessa to the magician his friend. (they haven’t even spoken yet, hint 2) Later, he takes her for a drink, and she introduces herself as Shruti and not Tessa. Here, as everyone might be perplexed as to why she does that, I totally think it’s far enough for her to do the same after all the cat and mouse play. Tessa wants to see if he was eager to meet her as well. Charlie looks a bit unsure and disappointed which sort of makes it seem like he had this all figured out but failed. They then take a picture before saying goodbye; now this is the third instance that left me confused, which later made me rewind sequence by sequence to make sense of it.

The polaroid picture appears in which Tessa is wearing the traditional Chattayum Muddum which she wore the night she ran away from home. The same night she asked for a lift from a stranger who rode a funky scooter. That night when she ended up at her friends flat in Fort Kochi who later becomes a link that leads her to Charlie’s apartment. So, how do you make sense of this? If what I understood is right, maybe Charlie picked her out all this while. He knew that she is THE one from the beginning and left his apartment with things that might intrigue her? He must have thought that she would pursue him once she gets to know about him?

Like some of us, Charlie is also afraid of love, of commitments. (he mentions this to Kani at one point in the movie) and maybe, that’s why he entirely created a magical coincidence which seemed like the universe conspired in bringing them together. He also calls himself a Jinn, an Arabic word that primarily means ‘to conceal’ or ‘to hide’. I know this has a different meaning in the movie but just putting it out here.

Now, these are just theories, but I like to believe in this angle of the story, which brings me to the second ending of the film. The movie could have ended like every other love story, marriage or maybe a baby, but no. This would make no sense for these two characters, to them, it’s all about freedom. Hence, they are on the back of a truck in Pushkar, perfect hippie couples on a journey together hereafter.