Param Sundari Review | 136 Minutes of Making Malayalis Hate Their Own Language

Let’s begin with the good news. The backlash they faced for “Thekkappetta” Sundari has paid off, and they have changed it in dubbing, and now it is “Thekkepaattu.” The bad news is that it was just the tip of the iceberg. In the rest of the movie, Malayalis will have to deal with an avalanche of horrendous Malayalam. When the poor research got trolled online, I heard Janhvi justifying the bad Malayalam by saying her character has Tamil roots as well. I think the editor chopped that detail while making this 136-minute Kerala Tourism Ad. In general, the writing of this movie is a broad-stroke mediocre one, and the Malayalam they have sprinkled all over it just makes it puke-worthy.

Sundar from Delhi is the son of a rich businessman who wants to do something of his own other than consuming protein powder. So he decides to invest in this unique dating app that would use the expertise of psychologists, neuroscientists, and even astrophysicists to access a database and find you your soulmate. So, for funding, the spoiled brat needed his dad’s money. However, the dad asks him to find his own soulmate through the app, and what we see here is Param’s journey to find his soulmate.

Many people had asked me to wait till the release of the movie when I posted content about the stereotypical portrayal of Kerala in the trailer of this movie. Well, there is absolutely nothing in the film that feels like a justification for the way they have portrayed Malayalis and Malayalam. I am not getting into the fact that Sundari is not a name Malayalis can associate with, and they have squeezed in Mullappoo and Kathakali wherever it was possible. I mean, we have the interval block of the movie where the hero and heroine are surrounded by 10 or 15 Kathakali artists in costumes. No. It’s not a dream sequence.

The portrayal of a modern-day Kerala woman is even more bizarre. I don’t have a problem with a Kerala girl having an aspiration to learn Mohiniyattam. However, the reference books of the writers of this movie are really from the ’90s or even before that. When in anger, she will climb the coconut tree; it’s so common in Kerala. And yeah, when the hero gets injured, because he thought Urumi was easy to handle, our leading lady uses herbal medicines instead of modern medicine. Land of Ayurveda, you know. And yeah, she obviously has a pet elephant. And also in Kerala, women still get married to their maternal cousin, no questions asked. And don’t get me started on Venu, the cousin. I saw this movie with an audience that had North Indians too. The Malayalam of Venu was so bad that the entire audience burst out laughing.

The agenda here is not to create a good love Story with authentic portrayals of culture and geography. They have this ultra derivative idea of a love Story, and to make it visually appealing, they needed an unexplored location. The Story is happening in Alappuzha. To get the herbal medicine, they go to Athirappilly (a 10-minute walk). For sightseeing, the duo is going to Munnar. I think they folded the map of Kerala, the way Christopher Nolan folded that paper to explain Memento.

The way they push the stereotypes for the sake of humor is annoyingly bad. We are shown that Kerala women are completely losing it seeing Sidharth Malhotra in tight dresses (possible). Since they are recreating forgotten formulas, they wanted a Ms. Briganza from Kerala. The drinking habits of Malayalis are taken to another level to create trashy humor. I hope people who are currently training for the Nehru Trophy Boat Race don’t happen to see this movie. It’s shown that anyone with biceps can do it and win!

Aarsh Vora, who couldn’t distinguish the difference between Lungi and Veshti in Meenakshi Sundareshwar, has gained the confidence to give a line like “you don’t even know the difference between Mundu and Dhoti na?” to his Malayalam murderer heroine. The song Lal Color Ki Saree is supposed to be happening in Kerala, and apart from seeing some familiar Malayalam faces and hearing some Google Translate lines, nothing about that song had a Kerala connection. The song Pardesiya is top-notch without a doubt, and that’s the only thing good about this entire movie, and you can watch that on YouTube.

Sidharth Malhotra has only one job in the whole movie. Maintain good looks so that the camera can give him as many beauty shots as possible, and he was really good at pulling off all those outfits. Janhvi Kapoor is indeed the attraction of this cultural circus as she plays a Kerala-born girl who did arts in Mumbai. Three years of studying arts in Mumbai may have really improved her Hindi and a little bit of Marathi. But that doesn’t explain why her Malayalam is worse than that of a migrant laborer from Perumbavoor. The way she wears a Saree and other traditional outfits is not at all helping her look like a Malayali. Sundari’s younger sister’s character is played by the talented Inayat Verma, and even she speaks terrible Malayalam. They could have at least cast a Malayali child for that role. The surprise joke package comes in the form of the good-looking Siddhartha Shankar. It was like we were all prepared for Sundari, but Venu came out of the syllabus. I mean, why would you cast someone of Tamil origin as a Malayali? And then these people have the audacity to lecture the North Indian audience about how ignorant they are about South India. Renji Panicker has this constipated style of dialogue delivery when he tries to do something funny, and the poor man is burdened with Hindi this time. Sanjay Kapoor, Manjot Singh, etc., are the main names in the cast, and even though he has only three scenes, Anand Manmadhan is the only one speaking proper Malayalam in the whole film.

There is a scene in the movie where Sundari talks about her late dad and how he used to say that all problems used to fade when he saw a Mohanlal movie along with black tea. The courage they have shown to butter the Malayali audience after abusing their culture and language for more than two hours definitely deserves a special mention at the National Awards. Ignorant, illiterate, arrogant, and entitled is what Sundari calls Param in this movie. I really shared her sentiment when I saw names as the end credits rolled.