Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham movie review: Nivin Pauly’s hammy comedy will leave a smile on your face

3/5

Story: Junior artiste Pavithran and actress-wife Haripriya are constantly at each other’s throats. In order to solve their ego tussles, the couple decide to take a short vacation and check into Hilltop Hotel. But after a pair of earrings goes missing, the two decide to get to the bottom of it but the situation soon turns awry when the goofy staff and whackier guests get into the mix.

Review: The protagonists of Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval’s Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham, which is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar are an insecure junior artiste named Pavithram (Nivin Pauly), who runs an acting school out of a tea shop, and Haripriya (Grace Antony), a serial actress who was forced by her insecure husband and his friend Shivan (Sudheesh) to give up her dreams while she was at the peak of her acting career. This has been an apple of discord in their “unromantic” marriage.

Ratheesh, who previously helmed the brilliant Android Kunjappan Ver. 5.25, adroitly uses this central conflict about Pavithran’s insecurity and male dominance to maximum comedic effect through an eclectic array of whacky characters that react in the most shocking and unexpected manner.

For instance, even after Haripriya finds out that her earrings are missing, Pavithran’s priority is to order food. And when the staff personnel arrives with the order, he doesn’t leave the room after serving the food and instead chooses to sit with the couple and indulge in banter. Apart from the obvious comedy in the scene, Ratheesh has added layers to it – unravelling Pavithran’s discomfort not because the outsider is sharing a table with them but due to him recognising his wife as an actress from a serial that she had left behind three years ago even as he is struggling as an actor. The scene has Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast playing in the background as the filmmaker tries to hammer the point home – loud and clear. Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham is anything but subtle; in fact the comedy here is a bit over the top – almost as if Priyadarshan’s love for theatrics got a Wes Anderson treatment.

The film revolves around the constantly bickering couple taking a break to solve their issues. But when the earrings go missing from their hotel room, they try to get to the bottom of it – only to realise that the hotel they are staying in has much bigger problems than their own. With a bunch of goofy staff that includes a poetry-gushing bellboy named Manaf Khan (hilariously enacted by Rajesh Madhavan), a perpetually frustrated manager Joby (Vinay Forrt) and a receptionist Shalini (Vincy Aloshius), who is at her wit’s end, along with whackier guests such as an inebriated Sura (Jaffer Idukki), who makes the couple’s problem his own, a psychologist (Sivadas Kannur) and a writer (Joy Mathew), the situation soon gets out of hand.

Both Nivin and Grace are endearing in their roles as the couple who are trying to rekindle some romance but have to confront their issues first. For those used to Nivin’s comedy roles in the past, Pavithran shows another side of the actor with him being over dramatic as the genre of the film demands. Grace scores big again with her turn as Haripriya. She bosses over her husband when he’s often lost in the scheme of things and takes control through her histrionics. Vincy is another standout performer in the film, which uses both Haripriya and her character Shalini to touch upon pertinent issues such as patriarchy and marriage amid the hammy sequence of events.

The constantly changing dynamics of Jaffer Idukki and Joy Mathew’s characters yield a laugh riot in the movie – from how they bring an entire queue to a halt while climbing the stairs for a brief chat to how Sura almost drives the writer to question his own beliefs.

While the characters in themselves are unique and eccentric, they somehow lack the chemistry to make their combinations memorable. The film’s script does have several laugh-out-loud moments but it seems stitched with individual sequences that work as sketches but don’t really offer much in terms of an engaging flow of story. It feels that the story thread was stretched just to accommodate the comedy. The director also has indulged himself with The Shining, Titanic and even the over-dramatised English sequence from Jayan’s Angadi getting a homage in the movie. But to Ratheesh’s credit, when the comedy works, it results in big laughs.

Verdict: Told in a unique setting and filled with whacky characters, the film is a welcome break from the series of thrillers that have been finding its way to the OTT platforms from Mollywood. Amid the hilarious lines and sequence of events, Ratheesh also touches upon important issues about marriage.