Kudumbasthan Movie Review: Manikandan’s family drama is excellently true to genre, brims with fresh comedy

3.5/5

Kudumbasthan Movie Story: Naveen (Manikandan) is the sole breadwinner of his family which consists of his wife Vennila (Saanve Megghana), whom he eloped and got married to, and his parents. After a heated argument at work, and refusing to apologize for something he feels he hasn’t done wrong, Naveen gets fired from his work. Boggled by family pressures and financial struggles, how Naveen manages his life forms the crux.

Kudumbasthan Movie Review

After the fantastic successes of Good Night and Lover, Manikandan once again comes with a story that might have a simple conflict on paper but executed with utmost detail on the big screen. The premise stirred up in Kudumbasthan is not far-fetched from reality. If you are someone who gets worried by the 20th of every month, just when your bank balance begins to drop and house errands are still stacked on top of each other, Kudumbasthan knows how to deliver those emotions in the utmost comically yet empathetic way, and that makes a difference of not turning up as a mockery. Now imagine, what a job loss would do, and the film becomes a brilliant setup for an emotionally charged comical drama. 

Kudumbasthan is that film that can hilariously set you up with its first half. After a rushed episode of how Naveen and Vennila elope to have a registered marriage, the film beautifully exploits the genre of family drama. There is never a dull moment in the first hour or so of the film, which feels like a seamlessly stitched stretch of clean comic sketches. Actor and writer Prasanna Balachandran and director Rajeshwar Kalisamy of Nakkalites fame, borrow the knowledge of YouTube experience to script the screenplay and dialogues that are both humourous and healthy. One-liners greatly work, and merely translating to state here doesn’t do justice to the uniquely fresh comedy that Kudumbasthan brings to the table. 

But in between these, Kudumbasthan never forgets to insert nuggets of emotional payoffs. For example, Naveen, whose struggles are very much guarded from his family, remembers to talk to his pregnant wife’s belly at night when the latter is asleep. A simple gesture when he puts a sleeping Vennila’s hand on him as he lays beside and wonders how to push the mountains is gentle, human, and truly heartwarming. You feel this deeply every time he does because the film has a moment way in the beginning when the couple is at the registrar’s office for their marriage. When Vennila asks the official if it is okay to hug there, and goes for it after the couple fights, makes the characters endearing.

Once the first few scenes set the precedence that the film’s happenings may not be true blue, but dramatic and hilarious, you catch on to that, and the laughter riot proceeds. It’s only because efforts have gone into crafting the world as such. The underlining emotions that strongly can resonate in Kudumbasthan are how it builds characters that are humanly relatable as well as over the top. Guru Somasundaram who plays Manohar, Naveen’s haughty brother-in-law, Sundarrajan as Naveen’s father, and Balaji Sakthivel as Naveen’s boss, round up as great additions to the lead stars' performances. 

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While the screenplay takes a slight hit post-interval, and the laughs reduce, the drama takes over. But Kudumbasthan is quick to turn its finale very much like one of those Crazy Mohan-Kamal Haasan film climaxes, that it almost feels comfortable to go back laughing, not at the characters but at the film.  

Kudumbasthan may tend to leave some arcs mid-way, one being Manohar’s equation with his wife and his professional side, but for the film to have the heart at the right place, the family drama makes it to the solid start for Tamil cinema this year. 

Kudumbasthan Movie Verdict

Manikandan scores once again big time with Kudumbasthan with its clean comedy, witty writing, and light-heartedness it comes with. But that’s not all about it. The film knows how to use artists to their strengths, and that makes Rajeshwar a filmmaker to look forward to. But on the whole, Kudumbasthan feels like that one film that not only caters to audiences of all age groups but also makes you feel strongly that Tamil cinema has managed to open its account for 2025.

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