Kudumbasthan Review – This Family Man is a Big Winner!
Kudumbasthan Review – This Family Man is a Big Winner!
Kudumbasthan Review – This Family Man is a Big Winner!
Ashwin Ram
Kudumbasthan is a comedy drama starring Manikandan and Guru Somasundaram in the lead roles. The film is directed by Nakkalites fame Rajeshwar Kalisamy.
Premise:
Manikandan works in a hoarding advertising company. He is fired for supporting his friend and going against his boss, after which he struggles to find a job. How he survives financially and emotionally amidst various hurdles forms the remaining story.
Writing/ Direction:
Keeping the satisfying flow on one side, one jarring factor in the initial portions was that the characters are exaggerated. Thankfully, the loud tone settles down as the film progresses. As far as the first half is concerned, there are plenty of fun moments in every scene, importantly the approach is very organic as the humour is lively. Certain stretches appeal to be like YouTube videos, yet the entertainment value hides them all. The Gandhi Park sequence, making the characters useful to solve a huge loan problem, incorporating many trendy elements both technically and script-wise add huge momentum. No big dull moment in the screenplay, something or the other is constantly happening, in which most things land well and some don’t. The relatability with respect to the ego clashes of brother-in-laws shapes the film, plus all the family arguments and conversations are sure to connect with the viewers. Second half till a point gets into a regular zone of developing the bakery business, the engagement is quite low during these portions as it is excessively stretched. The Chinese style preparations of Guru Somasundaram became repetitive after a while and the real-estate attempt of Manikandan fell flat despite having enough foreshadowing. Gets significantly better towards the end, in fact the last 30 minutes is solid. The emotional drama worked neatly, the hero’s lone bathroom talks and conversations with his yet-to-be-born little one are so touching. The climax kept generating enough hilarious bits parallely among the on-going family drama that gets a convincing closure. Hats-off to the director for maintaining nativity in presentation with respect to dialogues, slang, artist selection and in picking the right locations.
Performances:
Excellent all-round performance by Manikandan, be it the crazy humour, family sentiment angle, responsible worker, situational liar and what not, he has served a perfect platter. Neat work by debutante Saanve Megghana, she emotes very naturally. Something felt odd about Guru Somasundaram’s attitude at the beginning, it becomes the highlight as the story flows. All the other characters in the family, friends and at workspace did very well to elevate the output of the scenes.
Technicalities:
Nice songs to match the visual montages and lyrics to match the situations. Many racy scenes and the background score aptly runs along with the flow without overpowering the context. The cinematographer has exactly provided what is best for the film, earthy colour-tones and simple camera angles that go well with the backdrop mood. The fast-paced cuts are very impressive during some clever scene transitions, a little more scissoring was required in the second half as there were evident lags.
Bottomline
A fun-filled family flick that is sure to entertain the audiences without any age differences. The light-hearted emotional angle connects too. There are quite a few dull spots in the later half, however it doesn’t affect the result much in totality.
Rating – 3.25/ 5
