The exuberance of Rishi Kapoor and the sparkle of Sridevi….The romantic lead in director Tushar Jalota’s agreeable rom-com fastens our memory banks to the gone couple.
It is a ravishing recall that helps us overlook some of the gawky portions in a largely likable movie.
There are no huge highs and lows in the storytelling of Param Sundari. Just two charming regular people getting to know each other. Nothing dramatic happens in the plot. Nobody dies. Damn, no one even falls ill.
Everyone is in the pink of health, most of all Sidharth Malhotra, who arrives in eye-catching Kerala with sidekick Manjot Singh.
(A question: from Mehmood to Manjot, why is the hero’s best friend—or the heroine’s best friends (Aruna Irani, Farida Jalal—a better actor than the hero?)
What follows is cute, quaint, and appealing, though nothing earth-shattering. Unlike the other romantic typhoon of the season, Saiyaara, this one doesn’t stretch its emotional bandwidth to get our attention. Rather, it lets the two protagonists waltz to the beats of their mutual conviviality.
Much of what fuels the festive feeling comes from the lead pair’s discernible chemistry. Sidharth Malhotra and Janhvi Kapoor don’t instantly look like they are made for each other, but they grow on one another and on us, the audience.
There is a beautifully constructed, lengthy (but not overlong) sequence in a church where Sidharth’s Param serenades Janhvi Kapoor’s Sundari with romantic overtures that could easily spill into excessive emotional torment. The writers (Arsh Vora, Tushar Jalota) ensure the tone remains frothy without brimming over, which is not to say that the atmosphere is vanilla.
An element of mischievousness rules the raga of courtship, especially when midway the film introduces a second suitor for Sundari’s hand. Venu (Siddhartha Shankar) is suave, sanskari, attentive, caring , charming… and Malayali .
In short, the best possible husband for Sundari, who craves a settled life of marriage and Mohiniyattam, far away from her chores as a homestay hostess.
Param, on the other hand, seems a bit of an unanchored wastrel, the kind of “hero” that populated the fiction of Somerset Maugham, living off his father (Sanjay Kapoor)’s wealth rather than making an effort to be the guy any sensible woman would want to marry.
At the end, I was not fully convinced as to why Sundari chose Param, except for the explanation that drives all romcom heroines to the inevitable conclusion.
Janhvi and Siddharth make an appealing couple. But Kerala, sensibly but scenically and never cynically photographed by Santhana Krishnan Ravichandran, is the real hero of Param Sundari.
God’s own country, as Kerala is called, gives the frequently far-fetched proceedings a fetching core-value, a reason to exist. The songs are pleasant and the choreography kinetic but controlled.
And which other film would give the lead pair a chance to climb a palm tree, though sadly not together?
