Param Sundari review: A romcom where Makeupitta Sundari shreds Malayalam like a coconut

I entered the theatre, delicately balancing two coconuts in each hand. In my mouth, I held a vakathi. When the security guard stopped me for carrying a weapon, I pointed to my Mohiniyaattam costume and the mullapoo in my hair. He understood immediately. I was that exotic creature from “down South”. He waved me in, and I waited with bated breath for Param Sundari to unfold on the big screen. 

This is how unicorns would feel when watching a movie about unicorns, I thought.

Directed by Tushar Jalota, Param Sundari is a love triangle between Makeupitta Sundari (i.e Thekkepaatu Sundari, who is never without garish makeup), Param, and coconuts. Of the three, the coconuts get the lion’s share of screen space and dialogue mentions. 

Makeupitta Sundari is played by Janhvi Kapoor – she’s a homestay owner in Nangiarkulangara, a small town in Alappuzha. To keep her family background sufficiently simple and sad, she’s an orphan with a sister named Ammu (Inayat Verma), a stock child character oozing precocious wisdom. Hot on her heels is rich Punjabi boy, Param (Sidharth Malhotra), from Delhi. How do they bump into each other? It’s no meet-cute story. It’s a no-meat story involving an app and his effusive daddy (Sanjay Kapoor).

The opening of the film – Param running with his mundu threatening to come off – tells you all that you need to know. This is yet another Hindi film tripping over itself in mundu/lungi jokes. Oh my god, so funny, ya.

Then we meet Makeupitta Sundari, appropriately batting her eyelashes. Makeupitta Sundari has fascinating hobbies such as climbing coconut trees, chasing people with her vakathi (Malayalam for a billhook knife), feeding elephants and practising Mohiniyaattam in a church. Which Malayali woman wouldn’t be moved by this authentic representation? Never mind that Janhvi’s Malayalam sounds like she’s passing every word through a coconut shredder. 

Aarsh Vora, who co-wrote the abomination Meenakshi Sundareshwar (2021), is one of the writers of Param Sundari. Clearly, no lessons were learnt from the drubbing that the earlier film received. At one point, an angry Makeupitta Sundari berates Param for stereotyping the south with no sense of irony whatsoever, that the entire film is just that – a kasavu-themed costume party that reduces South Indian cultural identities to caricatures. No, knowing the difference between Rajinikanth and Mohanlal isn’t enough. 

All of this staggering insensitivity would have been forgivable if the film had been mildly entertaining. But it doesn’t even try. It falls back on age-old cliches that rely heavily on looking new because it’s set in “exotic” Kerala to a background score that underlines the "foreignness" of the land at every opportunity. 

Rain. Wet saree. Rain. Yawn. The close-up shots of dewy-eyed Makeupitta Sundari and muscle man Param’s puppy eyes fail to evoke any emotion – amidst the stunning greenery of the location, their chemistry is hazardously plastic and does little to buttress the Jane Austenian dilemma that she supposedly confronts over the men in her life. 

The writing and direction are astonishingly lazy. Sample this: Param is about to propose to Makeupitta Sundari; she’s mega excited that it’s going to happen…but he doesn’t. Why? Because he gets a call and Makeupitta Sundari falls asleep before he finishes the five-minute conversation. I mean, COME ON! Renji Panicker as Kalari master and the stern ammavan struggles to keep a straight face as the film collapses around him faster than Janhvi can say “puttum-kadla”. 

All the other local men are wild hoodlums wearing mundu/lungis except when it’s wedding time, and then they turn up in sherwanis like they’re on the sets of Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham and not Nangiarkulangara. 

The Malayalam film industry makes scores of films set in small towns. Films with heart. Films with real people. Films that tell stories from here, there and everywhere. Films that surprise and offer fresh insight. Films that speak to the soul. Param Sundari flattens all of that possibility into a generic, exhausting and offensive romcom that is neither romantic nor comic. 

Why? What is the point? Why is Bollywood so bereft of ideas? 

It has to be said – the only good thing about Param Sundari is the hilarious meme fest that it has triggered from Malayalis everywhere. As for the rest, it is indeed thenga.

Sowmya Rajendran writes on gender, culture and cinema. She has written over 25 books, including a nonfiction book on gender for adolescents. She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her novel Mayil Will Not Be Quiet in 2015.

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.

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