There is a bold film lurking within Kadhalikka Neramillai that comes to the surface occasionally and indicates what this romantic comedy could have been if writer-director Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi had dared to take more risks. Siddharth (Ravi Mohan) is a structural engineer who considers weddings to be a pointless activity. His reason: Global warming. Siddharth talks about climate change and how he doesn't want to raise a child in a hellish landscape. The earth is overpopulated anyway; why add more burden to nature when it's already struggling with humanity's toxic waste? He is right, and if Udhayanidhi had really been brave, she would have dramatically expanded Siddharth's viewpoint instead of dispensing it as a mere speech. It's also possible that by embracing narrative complexity, Udhayanidhi would have brought out the stupidity behind the conditioning of women as maternal figures in our society. The desire to have a baby is subtly and constantly planted into their (sub)consciousness. Shriya (Nithya Menen) is smart enough to recognize that she doesn't want a man, just a baby. However, if she had been slightly more intelligent, she would have detected the source of her maternal longing. She would have discovered whether her wish to be a parent is her own or has been instilled by somebody.
Kadhalikka Neramillai, alas, has a dislocated spine. It mentions overpopulation and climate change, but it also depicts how cute it is to have a kid in your life. In a scene near the end, two characters imagine erecting a building in a place covered by nature's greenery. By introducing IVF treatment, the movie says that women don't need men to fulfill their motherly aspirations. However, it also shows that single parents spoil a child's mental development. Shriya's son, Parthiv (Rohaan Singh), develops anger issues, and a police officer taunts Shriya by saying that she managed to lose her son twice. When Siddharth begins spending time with Parthiv, the boy becomes calm, cheerful, and happy. Meaning: Single parenting is not ideal; get a partner. Siddharth's father (Lal) raised Siddharth without his wife, and according to him, single parenting can be difficult but not impossible. His words, however, accompanied by that wide smile and eyes full of reminiscence, come across as a fairy tale. You feel as if he's discussing a fictional, mythical story, not a situation that exists in real life. And anyway, by choosing to dramatize a story where the girl chooses a boy to become a perfect parent, Udhayanidhi reveals that she doesn't entirely believe in single parenting. For her, the film's taboo topics are merely superficial triggers for generating easy emotions from the audience.
Siddharth and his friends go to a clinic to freeze their sperm so that we can get a jokey masturbatory bit. The staging of that scene where Shriya surprises Karan (John Kokken) and ends up getting surprised reeks of unoriginality. Was Udhayanidhi so severely out of creative juices that she had to use a serial killer news report to start Shriya and Siddharth's relationship? As soon as Parthiv appears on the screen, the movie immediately makes it clear he is Shriya's son by having a classmate talk about his dead father. One can sense the director's lack of trust in the audience, as well as an "exposition dumping" itch. In the very next scene, Parthiv encounters Siddharth, so we can notice the characters' behavioral similarities. This much hand-holding is unnecessary. Nevertheless, I don't know if I should be offended by that "return of the ex" twist or by the lack of explanation regarding Parthiv's Bangalore journey. How exactly did he manage to arrive at Siddharth's house? The movie brushes the question aside casually as if it's normal for a kid to travel somewhere without a guardian and reach an address where they had gone only once with a parent or an adult.
When you think about it, you find that Kadhalikka Neramillai is about an architect and a structural engineer coming together and building a life. The dots are so contrived that it all sounds unintentionally funny. Shriya wants kids; Siddharth has a different perspective. Still, both of them go through an almost similar journey (their engagements are broken at the same time - visually). How do they deal with the break-up? He sleeps with many women while she starts drinking and smoking. This is Udhayanidhi trying to break boundaries. Through another scene, she underlines how women are expected to uphold a family's honor by marrying a groom and having kids (in the same scene, she also highlights how it's the elders who wield power over everything - even something as small as giving a name to a kid). It's interesting that Siddharth is attracted to Shriya only because she challenges him (things don't work out with T. J. Bhanu's Nirupama due to a clash of ideologies). Both push each other to perform well in their professional field (they become friendly competitors after a point). The movie, unfortunately, reduces their job to generically shot meetings and flat images of them working on their drawings. The heat of professional rivalry doesn't come through either visually or emotionally.
The movie, then, is mainly carried by Mohan and Menen's chemistry. His performance, however, is too low-key. His expressions are subdued in a way that makes one feel as if he has put a chain on his emotions to prevent them from exploding on the screen. The explosion, in fact, happens inside his body, while we merely see its effect on his face, his body. Menen exists on the right pitch - it's she who draws you in and keeps you glued to the screen. There is something pure about her feelings - something mysterious that suggests she is not filtering her emotions in a specific way for giving a performance. Menen doesn't play Shriya; she seems to have created the character from bits and parts of her own personality. A scoff or a glance from Menen's Shriya proves to be so endearing that it surpasses the dramatic force and almost obliterates the flaws of the film. Nithya Menen is the best and only reason to watch Kadhalikka Neramillai.
Kadhalikka Neramillai is torn between the vision of Udhayanidhi, the progressive teacher, and Udhayanidhi, the crowd-pleaser. The latter ends up dominating this vehicle, though it's Udhayanidhi, the audacious filmmaker, who should have been present in the driver's seat from the beginning. "You cannot please everyone," says a character in Kadhalikka Neramillai. Udhayanidhi should have followed this advice.
Final Score- [5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times