BOTTOM LINE
Watchable Despite the Bangalore Days Hangover
PLATFORM
JioHotstar
RUNTIME
100 Minutes (4 Episodes)
What Is the Show About?
Manu is on the verge of marrying Veena, against his wishes, while still having the hots for his cousin Diya. The couple, along with their other cousins (Chandu, Aswathy, Megha and Sanskriti), hatch a plan to elope, but eventually decide against it. While Manu places his family’s honour above love, a heartbroken Diya does the unthinkable at the wedding, causing utter mayhem.
Performances
Krishna T Vijayachandran portrays the awkward transition from an introverted city guy to a love-struck youngster besotted with his cousin neatly. He looks the part and shares a zesty camaraderie alongside the feisty Manaswini K Ram as Diya. Manaswini and Siddharth play the more accessible, easily likeable loudmouth cousins. Nainita Maria, Nanditha and Manya excel in their chirpy avatars though their roles do not contribute much to the proceedings.
Analysis
Let’s all agree that regional OTTs have come to a point where they’re more interested in being safe than sorry. One wonders if it’s coming from a place of fear, to avoid much risk, relying on standard, established templates that guarantee viewership, even if they don’t offer anything new. Unfortunately, storytelling has eventually come to that, especially with OTT, which one presumed was a braver, courageous medium.
Cousins and Kalyanams, as evident from its initial promos, borrows its aesthetic and plot points from Anjali Menon’s runaway hit Bangalore Days (minus the gravitas or the depth). Cousins who stay at different ends of the country forge life-altering bonds at weddings, standing by one another in life through thick and thin. While the film refreshingly moved away from the cousins-in-love trope, this show romanticises it.
Much like the film that starts with Nazriya Nazim’s Divya expressing her apprehensions about an impending marriage, the show begins with a late-night conversation between two cousins. As one of them is slated to marry the next morning, there’s anxiety and temptation to break free from parental expectations. What starts as a stray thought balloons into chaos the next morning.
While the cousins go through the motions during the wedding, the show goes back in time to portray the evolution of their relationships and family ties. It briefly glimpses through the identities of the six cousins, from their childhood to adult years. The setting is pleasant and breezy, unravelling the family dynamic and the playful mischief of the gang.
Among the cousins, there’s adequate variety. Diya is the firebrand village girl; her love interest is an introverted Manu from a buzzing metropolis. Chandu is the naughty brat, Megha is the enthu cutlet, Sanskriti is the spiritual guru, and Aswathy is the glue that holds them all together. Yet, the focus remains primarily on Manu, Diya and Chandu in the initial episodes, as they are the more ‘commercial’ characters that sell.
It also partly focuses on the urban-rural divide among the cousins, highlighting how the city-bred and the village folk are wired differently. Manu, who has largely grown up in an isolated neighbourhood in Mumbai, finds it odd that there are too many people in the village where he is to attend a wedding. The series additionally pays heed to the bittersweet transition between childhood bonds and adulting.
Adulting naturally comes with an element of mischief: one of the cousins almost drowns at a beach, another gets kissed at a wedding, and they go helter-skelter about watching an adult movie on a DVD player. In sync with their colourful lives, the frames remain bright and vivid; the blues, reds, yellows and greens come together with verve. The idea is to make something familiar that ticks along smoothly, and it delivers on that front.
Cousins and Kalyanams is a mainstream-ised version of Bangalore Days, with newer faces and convenient writing. Do not expect anything fresh or out of the box. The release timing is apt; what better time than summer to go down memory lane and revisit the little-nothings with cousins?
Music and Other Departments?
Composers Sudeep Palanad and Sanjith George keep the music lively and upbeat, adding a vibrant texture to the proceedings, though not much of it stays with you after the show ends. Cinematographers Noushad Shereef and Ravi Chandran, while emulating the Bangalore Days aesthetic and colour palette, go a long way in making the show watchable, despite the unoriginal ideas. The costumes and production design add to its visual appeal. The writing is cheesy and predictable, but you roll along because it is still bearable.
Highlights?
Meant for light, breezy viewing
Visually appealing
Enthusiastic performances
Drawbacks?
The Bangalore Days similarity – in writing, visuals
Characters, backdrop come with cliches
Prefers commercial appeal over any scope for realism
Did I Enjoy It?
It’s okay, even if not groundbreaking
Will You Recommend It?
If you seek some summertime nostalgia of fun times with cousins, all with a heavy Bangalore Days hangover
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