*Curry and Cyanide: The Jolly Joseph Case* (Director: Christo Tomy, Netflix 2023)
The title of the new Netflix documentary on the Koodathai serial murder case — *Curry and Cyanide* — reminds one of those badly cut film trailers that give away the entire movie. You know the kind I mean: watching the trailer is as good as seeing the movie itself. But that is a small quibble in an otherwise engrossing film that is more humane than sensationalist, though the underlying material is primed for salacious curiosity. But Christo Tomy has a disciplined camera and does not indulge in any salacious content or noise. This is a documentary made for the family of the dead and the survivors.
*Curry and Cyanide* recounts the family story at the center of six connected deaths in one family and one woman who is directly tied to all six deaths. Jolly Joseph, the woman at the center of the six unnatural deaths, entered the Punnamattam family in Koodathai, Kozhikode district, as their eldest daughter-in-law in 1997, the wife of the eldest son Roy Thomas. It is a love marriage. It is alleged that between 2002-2016, Jolly Thomas administered cyanide to four members of her husband’s family, including her husband, and to two members of her second husband’s family, including a two year old child, and killed them all. She was arrested in 2019. The trial is currently underway and she and her co-accused are in custodial remand.
Director Christo Tomy has resisted the temptation to “understand” why Jolly Joseph gave cyanide to six people, including her first husband and her second husband’s two year old child. Going down this path would have meant giving significant screen time to speculations about a sociopath who allegedly fed herself on murder. Instead, Tomy gives center stage to Roy Thomas’s sister Renji Thomas, his brother Rojo Thomas as well as Jolly Thomas’s son, Romo Thomas. Through the words of these three characters, we are gradually introduced to a subculture where tradition and modernity attempt to coexist functionally with leisure, laziness, lust, lies, money and murder.
The film raises more questions than answers: for instance, where did Jolly Thomas go when she pretended to go to work? For how many years can you sustain a lie about employment? About salary? Why did Shaju, the second husband agree to marry Jolly Thomas around whom death danced at regular intervals, including that of his own toddler daughter and his wife? What was the conversation in the community or the church about the recurring deaths–albeit over established intervals– in this one family? The fact that the trial is ongoing as the film is released is a particularly heartening fact: perhaps the film will intersect with the juridical discourse at some point.
Indeed, what is most admirable about this film is the restraint exercised by the director not to be judge and jury about this case. All we really hear about is the appalling sense of pain from the mouths of the sister and the brother who lost first their mother, followed by their father, then their elder brother, and finally an elderly uncle. The film tracks their growing recognition in real time that their sister-in-law has something to do with these unnatural deaths. The same restraint is exercised in the interviews conducted with Jolly Thomas’s son Romo. We understand the helplessness of a son who cannot love or respect his mother. The moral core of this documentary is with the victims and survivors of the crimes.
Thus, unlike other murder documentaries from India made for the new Netflix market in the global south, this film has no noise. There are very few “experts” spouting off to exhibit their knowledge: the police inspector who investigated the original case is a mild-mannered man who plays piano, and the toxicologist is a skeptic. There is a “gender expert” who says diagonostically that Jolly Thomas was trying to create a fantasy world in her mind that is at odds with the reality of her situation. But this sounds like complete bullshit when we later hear from the sister Renji Thomas who reports that when she questioned her sister-in-law about why she killed six people, Jolly Thomas stated – “I have a criminal mind; I am very good at hiding things.” This is public record; there are numerous police officers sitting around them as she says this.
That last statement from Jolly Thomas is perhaps a good reminder for all “serial killer enthusiasts” that, ultimately, there is no great mystery to these sociopaths. You and I work hard to make an honest living. These are lazy assholes who lie, cheat, steal, deceive, kill to make theirs, to get their kicks. Knowing what makes them tick is not going to solve anything. Kudos to Christo Tomy for saving the frames for the victims and the survivors.
The Red Earth 