Kenatha Kanom movie review: Yogi Babu-Suresh Sangaiah film with promising themes gets buried under skeletal writing and execution

Kenatha Kanom attempts to blend political satire, social commentary and drama, but ends up overcrowded with ideas. Despite a promising premise and Yogi Babu, it struggles with uneven execution

Kenatha Kanom movie review

Kenatha Kanom plot:

Somewhere in Ramanathapuram, a village is drought-stricken and water-starved as the residents go to great lengths to solve this issue. As a last resort, they decide to dig a well in front of local temple priest Manivasagar’s (Yogi Babu) house. But as they make a startling discovery, the village is taken over by the archaeological department, irking the residents even more.

Kenatha Kanom review:

In Suresh Sangaiah’s posthumous release Kenatha Kanom, the conflict keeps changing every half hour or so. Initially, it is Manivasagar being unable to get his lover’s (Lovelyn Chandrasekhar) hand in marriage because her father does not want his daughter to live in a village with water scarcity. Then it becomes about how the villagers convince Manivasagar to dig a well in front of his house, followed by the startling discovery they make. The archaeological department taking over the villagers’ land raises questions about whose right it is when it comes to land that holds national value, the systematic corruption of a local leader, followed by the exploitation of the villagers’ unawareness, and the government officials’ blind belief that any land can be taken up by them irrespective of the residents. These are just a few situations that briefly belong to the story arc of Kenatha Kanom, which wants to explore all possible conflicts within one story, that it becomes a messy affair with no strong takeaway points.

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Kenatha Kanom has Manivasagar at the centre of the conflict, and it is through his eyes that we are supposed to see how the Ramanathapuram village is suffering without a droplet of water. His potential father-in-law refusing to agree to the marriage citing the drought, him facing a personal loss, his land and home being taken away, and Manivasagar being unable to pay his last respects to his loved one properly are some of the instances that hold great potential to emotionally resonate with the protagonist. But Kenatha Kanom misses these golden opportunities and chooses to invest in humour that neither attempts to make you laugh nor adds any value to the story. In fact, it takes the first half of the film to arrive at the conflict, and instead of world-building, all it does is string together pieces of scenes that only exist to fill the screenplay.

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The main issue with Kenatha Kanom is that it refuses to commit to a genre. Is it a political satire or mere emotional drama? Because it neither makes you tear up during emotional scenes nor makes you laugh even when it has Yogi Babu at the centre of it. For example, a tonal shift to humour after police brutality on villagers comes across discomforting, with the comedy giving barely any quips. Despite the barrage of one-liners, sentimental blocks, and situations that keep changing, Kenatha Kanom remains monotonous and unambitious. Even as the one-line premise hold potential to become an interesting social satire, the film only wants to stack ideas one after another without really fleshing them out. An example of this would be when Yogi Babu’s potential father-in-law says that his daughter cannot be taken care of in the protagonist’s village, and she intervenes only to say that she does not need any man to take care of her and that she is enough for herself. Even as the politics of feminism seem good on paper, the idea stands out like a sore thumb in a situation that talks about something larger and more concerning.

With its loosely stacked ideas and uneven execution, Kenatha Kanom is a wasted opportunity that could have probably been dealt with better if made into a series. For a film that is less than two hours long, the comedy drama tries to rush through concepts, leaving them half-bitten along the way.

Kenatha Kanom verdict:

Kenatha Kanom is yet another addition to village-based political satires that want to take locally rooted situations, give them a wacky twist, and offer some food for thought. The film tries to follow this template in modest terms but somewhere loses in translation from paper to screen. The ideas are great, but there are too many for you to hold on to and travel with. In turn, Kenatha Kanom becomes a mumbo-jumbo of too many ideas executed unevenly.

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