Kushi, directed by Shiva Nirvana who is known for his films on messy relationships, brings together an atheist and a conservative Brahmin in a marriage that goes against the wishes of their respective families. Religion is an especially touchy subject in our current political climate, and it takes a fair amount of courage to place it at the heart of a romcom. The intervention of art is sometimes needed to remind us that the angry, volatile debates we have around such issues don’t exist in a vacuum, but concern human beings who come with their share of baggage and complexities. 

Vijay Deverakonda plays Viplav – meaning revolution – a BSNL employee and the son of Lenin Satyam (Sachin Khedekar), a renowned atheist. He’s a Mani Ratnam fan who decides to take up his posting in Kashmir because of Roja (1992) and the romanticised ideas he has about the landscape. Not just Viplav, Shiva Nirvana is also clearly a Mani Ratnam fan, and you can see the influence of the director’s filmography on the various plot threads – from Anjali (1990), Bombay (1995) and Dil Se (1998) to Alaipayuthey (2000) and OK Kanmani (2015). The “Naa Roja Nuvve” song makes no bones about this fact. 

It is said that opposites attract, but when the novelty wears off and the differences appear glaring, can the relationship withstand it? In Kashmir, Viplav runs into Aaradhya (Samantha), just as he’s tiring of Kashmir and its seemingly infinite supply of apples. She and her friend Deepu (Sharanya Pradeep) are wearing burqas, so he assumes that she’s Muslim. He instantly falls in love (his rationalism is restricted to god) and follows her around, trying to convince her about his feelings.

It’s a shallow love story, but the chemistry between the two leads makes it work. With Vennela Kishore as his sidekick, Vijay blunders through Kashmir, wearing his heart on his sleeves. Samantha, with her big, easy grin, is charming as the burqa-clad Aaradhya, and the banter between her and Sharanya is enjoyable too. The film, of course, really takes off only when Viplav and Aaradhya stop fooling around and get married –  it’s Alaipayuthey all over again, with two warring fathers heading the families on either side. Saranya Ponvannan, Lakshmi, and Murali Sharma are each compelling in their respective roles, and Shiva Nirvana does an admirable job of placing different belief systems on the table, without mocking or puncturing anyone’s conviction. That said, he conveniently pushes the question of caste to the background as a by-the-way, and makes the central conflict between rationalism and religion. 

There is an old world, unhurried pace to the screenplay, a relief in an era where fast cuts are the order of the day. I did see some restless young people in the audience checking their phones in between, but as a ‘90s kid, I bought into the film’s soap bubble world – the panoramic shots and songs, the heat of new love, the absence of melodrama, and the self-aware references to the previous films of the two stars. 

What doesn’t work so well are the action scenes force-fitted into the narrative just to please Vijay’s fans. The bike fight in Kashmir is disappointingly Islamophobic, feeding into the divisive stereotyping of Muslim characters as violent and brutal. This is not to say that Muslims can do no wrong but to underline how dehumanised these portrayals are – showing Islamic caps and kohl-lined eyes to explain someone’s villainy. Even if you choose to look past the problematic representation, this and another fight in the latter half of the film that unfolds in the metro, look out of place in a relationship drama. They don’t add value to the plot and come off as formulaic – after all, the conflict between Aaradhya and Viplav isn’t that he doesn’t defend her “honour”, it is their inability to move past differences and disagreements. 

So, when Viplav refers to Aaradhya’s mangalsutra and other symbols of marriage and tells a bunch of molesters that they should have stayed away on seeing these markers because she clearly has a man to “defend” her, you can all but roll your eyes. At least you know that when Viplav called himself a “feminist” a few scenes ago, he didn’t really know what he was talking about. Some more thought and effort need to go into rebranding Arjun Reddy, please. 

Rohini and Jayaram play an interfaith couple – Zoya (yes, there’s a Good Muslim to balance all the Bad Muslims we saw earlier) and Thomas. They remind you of the older couple in Alaipayuthey and OK Kanmani, but their story resembles that of another couple in a Mani Ratnam film. Despite the predictability of it (and the mangled Malayalam when the film shifts to Alleppey briefly), the actors bring a certain warmth to the screen. The white people in the film, though, are sad caricatures, stuck with awkward lines –  be it Viplav’s sister-in-law and nephew or the creepy man at Aaradhya’s office party. 

Kushi isn’t strikingly original. But the treatment of a familiar story, with a gentle push towards introspection, makes all the difference. Opposites attract – and that’s just the beginning, never the end of a love story.

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the producers or any other members of its cast and crew.

Sowmya Rajendran writes on gender, culture, and cinema. She has written over 25 books, including a nonfiction book on gender for adolescents. She was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her novel Mayil Will Not Be Quiet in 2015. Views expressed are the author's own.