Param Sundari: A Perilous Postcard From Kerala

‘Param Sundari’ from the Maddock Films’ stable is a beautifully shot Hindi ‘romantic comedy’ directed by Tushar Jalota, but an intellectually shallow exercise in Mumbai’s latest cinematic tourism attempt to Kerala. It arrives with all the glossy promise of “God’s Own Country,” yet delivers nothing more than a cliche commercialised postcard. For any individual with some basic understanding of this Southern State, it was not a celebration of Kerala, but a profound cultural offense committed glaringly on a full screen. 

The film’s central failing is its complete disregard for the human element. It sees Kerala not as a land of people with unique histories and agency, but as a collection of visual tropes consisting of serene backwaters, swaying palm trees, and a token folk dance. The characters from Kerala are not individuals; they are one-dimensional caricatures designed to serve the protagonist’s narrative. This isn’t just lazy filmmaking; it’s a form of cultural erasure, stripping away the very qualities that make the state so extraordinary. “Param Sundari” offers a sanitised, fictionalised version of Kerala, one that is palatable to a dominant audience, but which betrays the powerful social and democratic realities. It amounts to a direct contradiction of the real Kerala. 

In the long and often problematic history of Bollywood’s engagement with the “other,” the film “Param Sundari” stands out not for its audacity, but for its utter banality. It is a sluggish and commercial exercise that reduces a state as culturally rich and socially complex as Kerala to a series of exoticised frames. The film’s narrative is a tourist’s fantasy of a three-night, four-day holiday package offered by a Paharganj-based travel company. Its characters are empty shells, and its story is a lame excuse to film pretty locales without even attempting to carve a narrative or storytelling. 

The most offensive element of “Param Sundari” is its complete and deliberate erasure of individual agency. Every character from Kerala is an obvious stereotype, a one-dimensional prop in a narrative designed for a North Indian gaze. They are not human beings with their own inner lives, aspirations, and complexities; they are just dressed-up symbols in a cultural play. The female protagonist, Sundari, is the most glaring example of this cinematic branding. Her name itself, “beauty,” is an immediate reduction of her identity to her physical being. 

Sundari is an innocent, traditional South Indian girl, a trope that has been recycled in Hindi cinema for decades. The film’s writers do not give her a personality, a history, or any meaningful motivation beyond her role in the hero’s journey. She is a canvas onto which the barely clothed Param can project his romanticised notions of purity and tradition. The film’s most talked-about scene, where she scales a coconut tree, is a microcosm of this character assassination. It’s meant to be a moment of “charming quirkiness,” a visually stunning but context-free spectacle. In reality, it is a demeaning simplification. It implies that a woman from Kerala’s entire existence can be summed up by her proficiency in such rural tasks. Her “traditional” attire, the Kasavu Sari, is presented as a costume, a visual shorthand for her cultural “authenticity.” 

The men of Kerala in the film fare no better. The uncle is a generic, unbending patriarch. He is the guardian of “tradition,” whose sole purpose is to stand as an obstacle to nothing substantial. His stern demeanour and unfounded obsession with arranged marriage are not a reflection of an elder family man’s beliefs, but a convenient plot device. The supporting male characters, particularly the love interest, are even more lazily written. They are presented as either bumbling, unsophisticated figures or as wild, unrefined brutes. The complete lack of nuance seems to be a deliberate choice made by the Producer Dinesh Vijan and Director Tushar Jalota because it is easier to create a “fish out of water” comedy when the fish are all caricatures, devoid of the very humanity that would make their interactions believable. It takes away the right of an individual to be seen as such and forces them into a narrow, pre-defined box. It becomes an act of cultural majoritarianism, letting a dominant culture dictate how a subaltern one is portrayed, erasing its complexity and dignity for easy entertainment.

The film’s depiction of a quaint, sleepy village is a deliberate falsification. The real Kerala is a politically vibrant and socially conscious society. The very air is thick with debate, discussion, and democratic action. The state is a textbook example of a successful grassroots democracy. The Panchayati Raj Institutions, or local self-governments, are not just administrative bodies; they are the beating heart of Kerala’s political life. Here, farmers, laborers, and homemakers sit side-by-side with elected officials, debating and deciding on everything from public health initiatives to infrastructure projects. The film, in its myopic focus on a superficial love story, completely ignores this powerful and inspiring reality. It is a state where the average citizen is not a passive bystander but an active participant in their own governance. The film ‘Param Sundari’ pretends that these elements do not exist.

In a moment that seems designed to placate critics and feign cultural awareness, Sundari delivers a lecture to the protagonist, Param, on the diversity of Southern India. This scene is an exercise in condescension, a flimsy attempt to disguise the film’s own ignorance. Sundari meticulously explains that “Kerala means Mohanlal, Tamil Nadu means Rajinikanth,” a line that is meant to demonstrate her knowledge and, by extension, the film’s. It reduces a person’s entire cultural identity to a list of movie stars. It is as if the film itself is admitting, “We know nothing about the place beyond a few token names, so let’s have the character recite them for us.” It’s a patronizing moment that does not come from a place of genuine understanding, but from a checklist of ‘things to include to show we did our research.’ The very need for this didactic moment exposes the film’s core failure; it has no organic understanding of the culture it is showcasing. The script’s multiple utterances of ‘culture’ itself are a band-aid on a gaping wound of cultural insensitivity.

The use of the Malayalam language in “Param Sundari” is a source of constant frustration and ridicule. From the mispronunciation of names to the use of phrases as punchlines, the film treats the language as a foreign, comedic sound rather than a form of communication. The film’s gags about Param and his friend not understanding the local tongue are tiring and offensive. It reinforces a long-standing Bollywood stereotype that South Indian languages are “gibberish” or simply a source of unintelligible humor. The film makes constant, weary jokes about the language barrier between the North Indian protagonist and the local people. The Malayalam language is not treated as a rich, distinct form of communication, but as a source of comedy. Scenes where Param misunderstands what is being said are a recurring gag, designed to evoke laughter at the expense of a linguistic culture. The film uses the language barrier as a weapon, emphasizing the protagonist’s status as a cultural outsider who is ‘brave’ enough to enter this foreign land. This casual disrespect is a testament to the film’s core ignorance and its lack of empathy for the culture it so carelessly monetises.

The script writer’s decision to use language as a tool for slapstick comedy is an act of disrespect. The laughter the audience is meant to have at the expense of the language is born out of a dominant culture’s inability to see the dignity and richness of another. It’s a constant, jarring reminder that the film’s creators are not trying to bridge a gap, but to exploit it for cheap laughs.

One of the film’s visually better sequences is the portrayal of a boat race. However, the film’s use of such events is perhaps its most fundamental failure. The state is presented as a stage, not a lived-in world. The homes, streets, and natural landscapes are pristine, almost untouched by human life. There is no sense of the daily hustle and bustle, the vibrant markets, the local buses, or the politically charged discussions that are a hallmark of life in Kerala. The state is a dynamic, modern, and complex society, but the film renders it static and simplistic. This creates a disconnect for the audience: they are not watching a story unfold in a real place, but in a sanitised, fictionalised theme park. This artistic choice, born of commercial convenience, ultimately robs the film of any authenticity and makes its narrative feel flimsy and artificial. The movie is not about Kerala but about the fantasy of it. 

Cultural ‘details’ can best be called egregious. The Kathakali masks and Mohiniyattam are treated as ornamental pieces, devoid of their deep cultural and historical significance. The film presents them as “exotic” flourishes, something to be admired from a distance. It cherry-picks a few visually appealing elements and presents them as the whole picture, creating a skewed representation of the real world. 

“Param Sundari” is a continuation of a long and troubling trend in mainstream Hindi cinema, a trend of treating Southern India not as a land of diverse, self-sufficient cultures, but as a backdrop for a North Indian story. The ‘North-meets-South’ formula, as seen in films like Chennai Express, relies on a basic, ignorant template where the South is exoticised, simplified, and ultimately ‘tamed’ by the arrival of a protagonist from the North. This narrative perpetuates a soft cultural imperialism: one culture is cast as the norm and the other as the exotic “other,” inviting misrepresentation and mockery.

“Param Sundari”, in its sheer laziness, does not even attempt to subvert this formula. It embraces it wholeheartedly, creating a sanitised version of Kerala that is palatable to a dominant audience. The lack of a single, well-developed character from the state is not an accident but a design choice that reflects a complete indifference to authenticity. This film is a disappointing and ultimately offensive lie that must be called out for what it is: a commercial product that commodifies a culture without ever honoring its complexity. It is a testament to everything that is wrong with a certain brand of mainstream cinema that would rather sell a postcard than tell a truthful story. The movie’s legacy, therefore, will not be one of a beautiful love story but of a deeply flawed representation. It is a forgettable commercial venture that will, hopefully, be eclipsed by better Hindi productions by diligent filmmakers.