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Lijomol Jose plays Sam, who breaks the biggest secret of her life to her outwardly progressive parents, and as expected things take an ugly turn.
Kadhal Enbathu Podhuvudamai follows a modern family’s reaction to their daughter’s same-sex relationship. Director Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan delivers a gripping 102-minute tale.
Kadhal Enbathu PodhuvudamaiU/A
3.5/5
Starring: Lijomol Jose, Anusha Prabhu, Rohini, Vineeth, KaleshDirector: Jayaprakash RadhakrishnanMusic: Kannan Narayanan
Kadhal Enbathu Podhuvudamai is a film about the upper limit of a modern family’s progressiveness. For Sam (Lijomol Jose), it comes as a shocker that her parents aren’t the rational beings they seem to take pride in. Their facade of being a modern couple crumbles down when she reveals that her lover is a woman. Director Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan manages to pack in a lot of questions and answers about acceptance in a matter of 102 minutes, with a gripping tale that doesn’t let you meander much. The success of this character-driven film is due to its focus on the conflict and not pretending to be anything other than what it is.
The film follows the events of a day at Lakshmi’s (Rohini) household. Lakshmi is excited as her daughter’s lover is expected for lunch. She is also annoyed by the absence of her maid Mary (Deepa), who we are shown to be dealing with an abusive son-in-law at a police station. Lakshmi’s excitement knows no bounds as she is ready with gifts for her to-be son-in-law. However, Sam is petrified as her lover is Nandini (Anusha Prabhu), a woman. We are kept on the edge for almost all of the first half of the film as the ice doesn’t break. Nandini comes with a male friend and Lakshmi takes him for the lover of her daughter. When the cat finally gets out of the bag, Lakshmi flips, revealing her ugly side. What ensues is an interesting conversational drama that makes a case for queer love.
Jayaprakash puts a lot of effort into establishing the characters of Lakshmi and her ex-husband Devaraj (Vineeth). Amidst the busy preparation for the guest, Lakshmi doesn’t fail to put up content for her YouTube channel, which has a lakh followers. With the intonation of a TV anchor, Lakshmi tells her viewers, “Love is like grains of sand. Don’t hold it so tight as it will slip out.” When Sam first tells her she is afraid of coming out about her lover, Lakshmi says, “You bring anyone, and I would accept.” Her equation with her maid Mary also tells a lot about Lakshmi. She is indeed an affable human with a lot of admirable qualities, but her altruism seems to have a limit. On the other hand, Devaraj, who is living with his second wife, continues to have a healthy friendship with Lakshmi. It is established that Devaraj is a devout Christian. We see him washing chicken meat, when we meet him for the first time. On the other hand, we gather Lakshmi is a vegetarian. We also get a glimpse of Lakshmi having a peg of whiskey when things go down. All these pointers underline how modern Sam’s parents are. Nevertheless, even they are unable to fathom her homosexuality. Lakshmi calls it perversion, while Devaraj call’s meaningless.
Without such textures and character-building Kadhal Enbathu Podhuvudamai is nothing as there isn’t much going on concerning the story. It all happens in Lakshmi’s house. Even a flashback to Sam and Nandini’s formative years of romance is brilliantly brief and poetic. When the director could have taken an easy way out to add a lot more to the film with the flashback, the choice to be faithful to the single conflict in the story has made all the difference to Kadhal Enbathu Podhuvudamai and mediocre family drama. As the film comes to a close, it hits you that the film is not about Sam coming out to her parents, but them coming out as these regressive humans. Yet, Kadhal Enbathu Podhuvudamai doesn’t treat them as villains, nor does it rob them of their dignity. It lets them be, like how it wants the world to treat Sam and Nandini. Let them be.
