Romancing Kerala:
The message finally reached Bollywood that Kerala is making great films; so it was decided that if they can’t make films like Kerala does, they will make a film in Kerala. Then, they throw in a full force God’s Own Country tourist reel stuff—Kathakali, Kalaripayattu, elephants, waterfalls, Onam, the famous boat race.
At the core of Param Sundari, directed by Tushar Jalota, is the Bollywood romcom;s not-so-secret sauce – Daddy knows best, the rake gets the girl and good guy gets friendzoned. How can gym-toned, protein-shaked, six pack abs and fair skin lose to real accomplishments like education, career, cultural rootedness. Of course, girls would choose “junoon” over “sukoon” the film says– that formula does not change.
Param (Sidharth Malhotra) is a good-for-nothing Delhi man, who blows up his father’s (Sanjay Kapoor) money over useless business ideas. Then he gets sold on an app that would help users find their soulmate, and his father tells him to test it himself. So clueless Param and his equally clueless sidekick, Jaggi (Manjot Singh), land up in a Kerala village, with a mountain of luggage, because the app matches him with Thekkepattu Sundari Damodaram Pillai (Janhvi Kapoor). She lives with her younger sister Amu (Inayat Verma) and runs a homestay.
They irritate her with their ignorance, and she has to first correct their bloopers about “South India”. Sundari dresses like a city model looking always ramp ready to show off ethnic outfits, with sleeveless blouses, dipping necklines and bare backs. Because Bollywood’s go-to idea of sexy is a wet sari, if a bikini is not possible.
Jaggi makes the effort to learn Malayalam, but Param’s Punjabi swag is on display at all times, not to mention the wardrobe that covers gym wear and wedding bling, because, what else would those suitcases contain? A film that wants to correct cultural misconceptions, often slips into mocking things the Hindi-Punjabi belt does not understand. Right in the aircraft from Delhi to Kochi, Jaggie tries his elementary Malayalam on a fat, dark-skinned man, because all “South Indians” look like that, no? Just like all Malayalis can shimmy up coconut trees, and have fresh lungis at hand at all times to cover exposed knees!
Sundari is seen as fiery-tempered and independent and a professional Mohiniattam dancer, but all it takes is a slinky dance—in a church no less—for her mind to go empty like a coconut and heart get drunk on toddy (her words).
Then her childhood sweetheart, Venu (Siddhartha Shankar) returns from abroad after studying medicine, and her uncle (Renji Panicker) – not too fond of Param to begin with, announces her marriage to the very eligible Venu. Bollywood romcoms can never veer from the path already laid out by other films that went before, so one can see where this one will end.
The lead pair looks good on screen—sex appeal was the obvious instruction given to them– and has a kind of manufactured, slo-mo enhanced chemistry – but each time they look lovingly into each other’s eyes, the viewer’s eye wanders over to the gorgeous landscape. Hopefully, mainstream Hindi films will not end up sullying it.
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
