There's been an overload of thrillers, soul-searching dramas and realistic tragedies from the Malayalam film industry recently. While most of them were also extremely well-made, Malayalam film lovers were increasingly looking forward to an out and out comedy to savour. By the looks of it, Nivin Pauly's Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham seemed to be that promising light-hearted entertainer - BUT unfortunately this film by Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval disappoints and how.
Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham starts off with some amount of promise - the credits appear with a voice over announcing names like it would in a local drama troupe's theatrical performance. There are even woke digs made at caste names, but the film regrettably also plays out like an overperformed staged drama. It's almost like the filmmaker was overtly conscious of making a comedy and so the background score is laid in a manner that it wants to badger home the message to the viewer, "hey, this is funny!" "hey, this is comedy!" throughout.
The story revolves around a down on his luck junior artist, Pavithran (Nivin Pauly), and his wife Haripriya (Grace Antony), who's a former Malayalam TV serial actor. When Haripriya walks out on him due to differences, Pavithran woos her back with a new pair of gold earrings and a holiday in Munnar.
Grace Antony and Nivin Pauly in Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham.
Around 80 percent of the film is then set in their hotel in Munnar. That's where this proposed 'comedy of errors' then unfolds with various characters including the hotel manager Joby (Vinay Fort), the random drunk man Sura (Jaffar Idduki) and a receptionist Shalini (Vincy Aloshious) among others playing important parts. Here the couple's earring goes missing, along with the script of the film. Pauly, who is usually a scene stealer seems as lost in the proceedings as the earrings. Though the rest of the cast ably play their parts, it is Grace Antony who delivers yet another terrific performance. However, Antony's comic range is totally wasted in the pointless narrative.
Grace Antony in Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham.
It might be a bit much to expect the Sathyan Anthikad or Priyadarshan level of comedy here, but Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham doesn't even aspire to be the kind of entertainers that writers like Udaykrishna and Sibi K Thomas used to give us (Mattupeti Machan, CID Moosa, Pokkiri Raja). One can't help but hark back to the time when comedies were just about giving actors like Nedumudi Venu, Innocent, Oduvil Unnikrishnan, KPAC Lalitha and Jagathy Sreekumar hilariously relatable lines and then letting the plot do the rest.
Grace Antony and Nivin Pauly in Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham.
The premise of Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham had potential to elicit laughs, in fact, some of the scenes around Pavithran's obsession with 'method acting' are hilarious, but when a drunk man vomiting over people and an attempt to rape scene in the climax is played for laughs as 'comedy', you know that the film is scraping at the bottom of the barrel.
Individually, director Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval has given us the lovely Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 and Nivin Pauly (also the producer of the film) of course has a hugely successful and enviable filmography. We'll just have to make peace with the understanding that the makers simply went wrong with this one.
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