'Kadhal Enbadhu Podhu Udamai' Movie Review: An Intense Coming-Out Drama About a Not-So-Modern Family

Director: Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan
Writer: Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan
Cast: Lijomol Jose, Rohini, Vineeth, Kalesh, Anusha Ramanand
Language: Tamil

The first 30 minutes of Kadhal Enbadhu Podhu Udamai (Love Is Common Property) is not an easy film to sit through. It’s frothy and hollow and you’d be surprised that you’re watching the work of writer-director Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan, known for intense psychological dramas such as Lens (2016) and Thalaikoothal (2023).

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It begins with Sam (Lijomol Jose) confessing to her mother (Rohini) that she’s in love and wants her to meet this person. With the flowery set-up you’d find in silly rom-coms, we get scene after painful scene of the mother, preparing to welcome her future son-in-law. We learn that they hail from the upper middle class, and we also learn that Sam's parents separated years ago. The film uses this time to introduce us to a handful of characters, including Sam’s father (Vineeth), Sam’s bestie Ravi (Kalesh) and Deepa (Deepa Shankar), the cook who is more than family.

The pace is excruciating, and we clearly see what the film’s building towards. So, when Sam finally introduces her mother to her lover Nandini (Anusha Ramanand), it's a "twist" we saw coming from miles away.

You wonder why Sam didn’t feel particularly disturbed the night before this life-altering event. You also wonder why the makers decided to spend so much time protecting information anyone could have guessed from the promotional material. Either way, the film’s real twist isn’t that it tried to hide the sexuality of its heroine. Instead, what really surprises you is the film it evolves into, ditching the shallowness of its first hour for the sort of complex storytelling that becomes tough to keep up with.

This is also where the screenplay clicks into place as it transforms into a real-time conversational drama about one of life’s toughest conversations. And within minutes, the mood becomes tense and the facade of this educated upper-middle-class household begins to get dismantled, one scene after another.

Suddenly, Sam’s parents do not seem to be as progressive as they believe they are.

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The rest of the film operates in the form of a series of debates. Some of the topics are layered and complex, including nature versus nurture, while the others aim to answer questions we may have all asked at some point in time.

The writing choices are just as fascinating. At one point, we find the film splitting into segments. The nature of the debate that happens indoors, between the four women, comes with a feeling of mutual respect and curiosity, even when there’s tension.

In contrast, the same topic gets discussed by the two men as they go outdoors for a smoke break. These are both men who are outsiders at this point, not just metaphorically, but also literally, to the debate that’s happening at home. Yet it is their discussions that appear far more rigid without giving each other the space to explain.

A still from the film.

Not only do each of these characters represent one side of the debate, but they also surprise you with their stands. In a sillier movie, the point of inserting a character like Deepa’s might have only been for the comedy that arises from the way she looks at Nandini and Sam’s relationship. Yet in film’s most touching scene, Deepa steals a minute during the many arguments to explain why she will forever be their ally.

Such scenes do not just widen the scope of the film, but it also gives you feeling that the film’s talking to and for everyone. It isn’t just about Nandini and Sam anymore, just as it isn’t just about convincing Sam’s parents. In a sense, for a coming out movie, you do not feel like either Sam or Nandini even care for their parents’ approval. Instead, what they are looking for is a dialogue, a conversation between generations, even if they were to agree to disagree.

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And that’s perhaps why Kadhal Enbadhu Podhu Udamai is a film that deceptively takes you towards what it really wants to say. Come to think of it, even the first half hour was perhaps designed to look like a television serial to appeal to the kind of the people the film wants to speak to.

It doesn’t want to preach to the choir and instead chooses the far more complex route of speaking to people who are not looking to be convinced. Which means that even when the film begins to sound verbose or repetitive, we get the sense that this is perhaps the best way for its message to get across. It might not be pure cinema, but there’s something cathartic about seeing well-meaning people at opposite ends opening up and finally revealing their truths to one another.