‘Param Sundari’ Movie Review: Imitation Is Not The Best Flattery

It’s never a good sign when I start thinking of colourful analogies and lines for the review while the film is still on. It’s a worse sign when I start reviewing the cinema hall in my head instead: the smell of popcorn is overwhelming, the seats are too leathery, the temperature is just right, the ushers are respectful, the toilets are too far, the trailers go on forever, the darkness is too dark. That’s how forgettable Param Sundari is. Everything except the screen comes into focus.

The cross-cultural romantic comedy — where a generic Delhi hunk sets out to woo an occasionally Malayali girl — does the usual shtick of endless Bollywood and SRK references, recycled puns, borrowed charisma, and unoriginality disguised as hat tips. I did come up with an analogy, though. Watching the film is like walking through an upscale clothing store (“North-South collection”) in which shoppers pose in the mirror and google the latest fashion brands, Kerala Tourism ads and Chennai Express teasers play on loop on screens, and hoardings of airbrushed celebrities vow to improve our middle-class lives. In other words, it’s hard to tell a movie theatre from a mall.

The anti-plot goes thus. Param (Sidharth Malhotra), a bratty venture capitalist who invests his rich father’s money into failed startups, decides to bet everything on a cutting-edge dating app called Find Your Soulmate. Basically, he’s the techie equivalent of a nepo-baby who’s bored of his own good looks. His self-confidence is staggering, but as the great literary proverb goes: delulu is the only solulu. Daddy gives Param an ultimatum: prove that the app works by falling for his match — a girl named Sundari (Janhvi Kapoor) in small-town Kerala — and he’ll provide all the seed funding. So Param does what all self-respecting entrepreneurs do: he does not question the credentials of the founder, takes a flight, books the entire homestay owned by Sundari, charms her after angering her, passes off casual racism as ignorance, and tries to win over her ‘South Indian’ town as the filmy outsider. He’s too vacant to be offensive, even if his trip features every Northener-on-a-backwaters-holiday cliche in the book.

A still from 'Param Sundari'

This holiday involves being manhandled by an elephant named Rukmani (how did he not notice an entire elephant sneaking up on him? What’s up with his peripheral vision? Where’s a crocodile when you need one?); an annual Onam competition closing with a boat race which he wins by making his team sing Yeh Dil Deewana from Pardes; plenty of Roja-coded music; a confused third wheel named Venu; an insular uncle; every Malayalam tradition and festival possible; a Sikh bestie who falls for a local; and a conflict that obviously requires Sundari to discover Param’s ulterior motive (and IQ). She also has a precocious little sister who had secretly signed her up on the app because Sundari sacrificed her own dancing dreams to be responsible after their parents’ death. There’s a church moment where Param seems to be glitching as a Raj prototype and Sundari behaves like Simran; accents and dialects are optional after a point. There’s a pan-India message somewhere in there: mediocrity knows no borders.  

There’s also a passing nod to a hit Maddock romcom (Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya), which comes across as a reminder that Dharma and YRF don’t have a monopoly over self-reflexive winks anymore. Never mind that Malhotra plays Shah Rukh Khan in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Dil To Pagal Hai, Pardes and Sidharth Malhotra in Hasee Toh Phasee; Sanjay Kapoor plays Anupam Kher in DDLJ and Anupam Kher in Wake Up Sid; Janhvi Kapoor plays Deepika Padukone in Chennai Express; the film plays every other Bollywood romcom except itself.  

It’s hard to imagine a less ambitious mainstream entertainer in 2025. It’s the kind of movie that wouldn’t exist if not for all the recorded ‘data’ in the genre. Even the hero’s neck-acting when he chuckles is in service of a superstar most young actors idolise. The love triangle is so witless that the tech angle and culture-chaos feel like bandaids on exposed flesh. You keep hoping for a gimmick (like the robot-human love of Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya or the Groundhog Day-loop of Bhool Chuk Maaf) to puncture the monotony, but the twist is that there’s no twist. No punchline lands. No song dazzles. No chemistry clicks. No elephants are harmed. No Hindi biases are harmed. And the irony writes itself. A film about the perils of AI and algorithm-driven feelings unfolds like an AI-generated film with algorithmic emotions. Method storytelling, I suppose.