Daivame Kaithozham K Kumarakanam

Veruthe Oru Bharya was probably among the last commercially successful films of Jayaram. The new film Daivame Kaithozham K Kumarakanam is more like a fantasy satirical version of that movie. Directed by Salim Kumar, the satire in the film offers a lot of fun moments. But in the last half an hour the film tries to experiment too much with its satirical fantasy nature’s scope and thus ends up as a watchable average film.

K Kumar is this guy who is a part of the Panchayat administration. He is that orthodox person who believes in the concept that wife should always be like a servant to her husband.  So one day God decides to visit his house for staying for some time and to solve the gender inequality, God asks the husband and wife to swap their responsibilities. The funny repercussions of that and how it eventually becomes an eye opener is what Daivame Kaithozham K Kumarakanam all about.

Salim Kumar as a writer has tried to mock almost everything we do on our daily life. The way he exposes the hypocrisy in beliefs and daily routine is quite hilarious and I must say that I had a good laugh for the majority of this film. But the story is ultimately like an amateur drama where you have God appearing in front of the characters and them telling God that we have realized our mistakes, so please forgive us. If Salim Kumar had continued with his sarcastic tone towards the end, the politics of the film would have been much more interesting. But when this film went towards its happy ending, the solutions provided by God sounded patriarchal to me.

Jayaram is easily the best choice to play this kind of role as he has done similar roles earlier. The humor and tension were handled nicely by him. Anusree was more real and looked convincing to be that reacting wife character. Salim Kumar as Gopi Karimannur shows his typical strength in handling comedy and there are some really memorable sequences featuring him. The makeup they put on Nedumudi Venu looked really tacky. The cast has names like Indrans, Pradeep Kottayam, Anjali, Harishree Ashokan and many more.

Salim Kumar’s decision to approach this as a satire was a good one and he manages to bring in his kind of signature humor in the film. But it is in the last leg where thing are going haywire in the life of K Kumar, Salim Kumar sort of looses grip over the narrative. A film that had a satiric tone till that point becomes slightly serious and a little too crazy. The mocking of the media he did towards the end shows us his stand in the recent developments. Edits weren’t that great and the cinematography was average. I must say that the way they merged Salim Kumar into Messi’s footage was really impressive (at times better that what Neeraj Pandey managed to get in MSD Biopic).

Daivame Kaithozham K Kumarakanam is a satire with an engaging beginning, interesting conflict and a conclusion that isn’t completely convincing. It’s definitely worth a watch for the fun factor.

Rating: 2.5/5