Param Sundari movie review: Sidharth Malhotra-Janhvi Kapoor film struggles to find both rom and com

By which time Param (Sidharth Malhotra) and Sundari (Janhvi Kapoor) have finished with their meet-cute in a small Kerala town homestay, gone into the long second act which perks up only when such supporting actors Manjot Singh (hero’s BFF) and Renji Panicker (the heroine’s brusque uncle) show up, finally fetching up at their DDLJ moment, where you can see the spark, fleetingly, between the good-looking leads.

The only reason to stay with the film is that both Sidharth and Janhvi are so easy on the eye, but that’s also the trouble: they are too easy around each other. They are paired for the first time, and that should have automatically lent this enterprise some freshness, but clearly that’s asking for too much. Old Bollywood habits of relying upon tropes and stereotypes kick in, which means that the ‘boy’ and the ‘girl’ are almost never left to their own devices: Singh, as Param’s pal, and Inayat Verma playing Sundari’s precocious sister are certified scene-stealers, so what can the poor potential premis do? Meanwhile, you keep waiting for sizzle. ‘Saiyyara’, which is the bench mark for 2025 romances, got that right at least. Here the limpid-eyed Janhvi tries hard with the Malayali accent, calling attention to the effort, and the chiselled Sidharth gets to flaunt his abs, but this isn’t a film which gives its lovers a chance to do any heavy breathing.

That’s what come of trying for ‘clean family entertainment which will appeal to the young and old’. K-pop heart signs are bunged in along with feet-touching young women. Kalaripayattu moves and Kathakali masks are woven in, the Onam story is re-told to ignorant North Indians, who have zero idea that a ‘mundu’ and a ‘veshti’ are not the same thing, and that ‘Andhra means Allu, Tamil Nadu means Rajani, Kerala means Mohanlal, Karnataka means Yash’. And of course when the Punjabis arrive on the scene, with Sanjay Kapoor playing Param’s papa, it’s all got to be Chak De Phatte. Ok then.

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There’s also some rigmarole about dating apps and algos and how there is only one soul mate in the entire world (we’re looking at you, Yash Chopra). ‘Swipe right aur left karte karte thak gaya hoon’, says Param. Good on him, but did the writing have to be quite so bland and full of bumper-sticker lines? There’s also a clueless childhood sweetheart (Siddhartha Shankar) who is so totally oblivious to the glances Param and Sundari are exchanging till you want to shake him: whatever happened to green-eyed monsters?

There’s also the drunken scrimmages and the boat races. How can a film set in Kerala not have those? Except no one thinks that the one who should lead the race should have had some experience: how else would Param get the head of the table, so to speak, and do his hero duties? The one thing he pulls off with some verve, drawing me back into the film, is to climb a coconut tree to get close to his beloved: now that’s a new one — and a hard one — and it makes things better. Finally.

You do end up smiling, but it’s too little, too late.

Param Sundari movie cast: Sidharth Malhotra, Janhvi Kapoor, Renji Panicker, Sanjay Kapoor, Siddhartha Shankar, Manjot Singh, Inayat Verma, Abhishek Banerjee
Param Sundari movie director: Tushar Jalota
Param Sundari movie rating: 1.5 stars