Marriage. It’s complicated, yes. But the kind of complications that director Kalairasan Thangavelu wants to portray in “Aan Paavam Pollathathu” is laughable. And fair warning, this review is going to rambling and choppy because I’m literally tripping over in my brain in indignance and annoyance.
Sakthi (Malavika Manoj), who sees herself as a fierce feminist, independent, and progressive in her thinking marries Siva (Rio Raj). At first, Siva seems different from other men. During the bride-seeing ceremony, he foregoes his place on the sofa to sit on the floor with Sakthi. Ask her to sit on a chair or I will sit down with her, he says. This was the last pin to fall and Sakthi is bowled over. And yet, in a year, Siva is seeking a divorce.
When the movie released, I was encouraged by the number of positive reviews it received and I put it on my To-Watch list. A movie about feminism, women’s empowerment? Of course, a must-watch!
Oh boy, I didn’t know I was in for such a big disappointment. In fact, I was annoyed at the end of it. I don’t like the bride-seeing ceremony where a woman has to parade to be assessed. But Sakthi does it gladly enough. Okay, perhaps she couldn’t take family pressure. Fine. The rest of her “fierce” personality entails sporting pictures of Karl Marx, Ambedkar, and Gandhi in her room and saying “it’s my choice” every 10 minutes. She doesn’t have a job to support herself. She doesn’t display an interest in anything outside of Siva. She spends her day scrolling Instagram and making reels. All of a sudden she voices her interest in opening a beauty parlour, which has to be funded by Siva. And when he refuses, she loses her shit and then turns into this scheming, heartless person who cannot stay with this man any more because she “doesn’t want to be a slave” like her mother.
Sakthi is portrayed as wilful, arrogant, immature, shallow, and vacuous. This is the director’s version of a woman who is independent and progressive. And the man? Siva is the poor guy who has to put up with Sakthi’s tantrums, who has to bear the financial burdens of “maintaining” her, and also be emotionally sensitive. The incidents that break the marriage are non-incidents. Sakthi is constantly asked to be “proper”. When she sits with her legs crossed at a wedding it “doesn’t look good” when there are elders. When she refuses to delete a reel where men make lewd comments she is being impossible.
In the end, we get a lecture on why the man is the most wronged person on earth. Of course, the lecture is from a man, aimed at women. Men have a harsh life because they work all day and all they want is to care for and protect their family. So why can’t the women understand and adjust?
I can write another 800 words on this movie but I’ll stop. It’s an ode to patriarchy and victimhood of men. And now I know why this movie did fairly well commercially. The audience was surely the poor men who were escaping the torture of their wives.
