Making people laugh is a serious affair. And comedies are probably the most difficult of genres to execute. To craft an adult comedy with a sensitive theme, with maturity and style, is harder still. But debutant director R S Prasanna (from the L V Prasad film academy) has pulled it off with finesse. Kalyana Samayal Sadham deals with the issue of impotency in a light hearted but sensible and matter-of-fact manner.
The film centres on a couple Raghu and Meera, whose marriage is arranged through a matrimonial site. The couple get engaged, the marriage a few months away. While they draw closer to each other, Raghu discovers that he has an inadequacy. He can’t ‘do it’. The film is about how he tries to deal with it. And about how his friends and even the elders pitch in to help him out.
Appreciable is the maturity with which the director handles the issue, without any attempt at cheap titillation. Both Prasanna and Lekha should be commended for their unselfconscious handling of their roles. Prasanna easily slips into the role of the man who discovers his inadequacy and tries to deal with it. His various attempts to solve the problem acting on the advise of friends, add some fun moments. Lekha is comfortable essaying the role of a woman who doesn’t get flustered with the problem her guy faces, and supports him. In its sensibility and matter-of-fact handling of a sensitive theme, it reminds one of ‘Vicky Donor’. There are the double entenders, and naughty symbolic shots. But they are integrated in such a way that nowhere does one feel a sense of embarrassment or an assault on the senses.
The director has cleverly blended the traditional with the modern. The cast includes veteran actors from stage, like Delhi Ganesh and Kathady Ramamurthy, who add decorum to the proceedings. Aesthetically shot is the scene where the couple spend some private moments together on a boat. The second half slackens a bit, the narration stagey. But it peps up again towards the end. The song numbers by debutant Arrora are catchy, Mella sirithai... the pick of the lot. Kalyana Samayal Sadham entertains even as it takes up an issue that is becoming more prevalent in modern stressful times. It seems like the Tamil comic entertainer has come of age.