SR Kalyanamandapam Analysis

SR Kalyanamandapam (2021)

Directed and Edited by: Sridhar Gade
Written by and Starring: Kiran Abbavaram

The film excited me on an idea level. A wedding hall, built by the hero's grandfather loses its reputation because of his alcoholic father. Now, his mother requests him to take care of the wedding hall and revive it and save the family. The hero along with his friends, goes on a journey to revive the wedding hall. It's equivalent to a bunch of friends starting up and looking for investors - just that the milieu is more grounded and familiar. Apart from this core idea, there is another beautiful layer to the story which is the fractured relationship between the father and the son. There is good conflict, characters are authentic, and it's interesting. Everything seems organic. But the problem is when the film doesn't stick to these ideas for long. It goes into different territories. The director being the editor, there is a lot of style tried in the edit - it works in some parts, but sometimes it felt overdone. But I'm sucker for style, so I'd actually not mind someone trying style.

The film disappointed me because I was excited with the idea, and the film worked whenever it stuck to the idea - the portions where they go from houses to houses looking for clients, them doing their first wedding - it works. But soon, it goes into the potboiler format. Also, the love track didn't work one bit for me. And the politics of the love story were weird even for someone like me who says that films need not be PC. The first scene of him being drunk and bashing a few goons - it falls into the masculine zone - it would've worked if the core idea of the film was masculine too, like if it dealt with such themes. The angle of respecting a person irrespective of the money they make is good - but again, it's more like a subplot without any link to the core idea. It felt like there is good stuff sprinkled here and there but overall, it didn't work that well for me.