Kadhalikka Neramillai: Wasted Potential

 

Kadhalikka Neramillai has quite a groundbreaking plot, going against societal norms. However, I felt that it could have been better. Let's explore my directorial lens ft Kadhalikka Neramillai.

Shriya (Nithya Menen) could have adopted a child rather than have a biological child through IVF.

Adopting children is giving birth from the heart.

Indians anywhere in the world are obsessed with biological children. Several married couples in my family spent hundreds of thousands on fertility treatments to have biological children. Adoption wasn't even considered. It's understandable that Sethuraman (Vinay Rai) froze his sperm to have children - the law disallows single men/gay men couple to adopt children. But Shriya - she could've adopted. 

I don't understand why we're making fertility and IVF doctors filthy rich to have children when there are millions of children needing parents and familial love and devotion. Do game-changing Indian movies need to perpetuate the idea that it's not your child if it doesn't share your DNA? 

Fertility treatments are just another capitalist trap. Shriya has all the resources to give an orphaned child their best shot at life. And Siddharth's frozen sperm can be rendered useless - after all, men let their emissions out to sanitation facilities everyday - what difference it's going to make if a sperm bank lets those swimmers out?

Shriya rubs her baby bump and says, "Please don't be a boy," after she meets Siddharth. You want a child. Why put any conditions on who and what the child should be?

If you want a child, you should be ready to accept any possibility of what and who the child may be - she/he/them, disabled, neurodivergent, gay, good at vocational skills, not academically-inclined, melanin infused, albino, content with being a nomad or a monk, WHATEVER WILL BE, QUE SERA! 

Or was Kiruthiga echoing the sentiments of certain women who criticized Margot Robbie for having a son? As though anyone can control the gender of their child! What? You want to kill baby boys now?

Whoever your child is, your upbringing of them, parental control over what they consume in this information age, and what they learn on their own defines them. It doesn't matter if it's a boy, girl, genius, slow - raising them as good people who won't hurt others is your responsibility - Kadhalikka Neramillai fell short in extending this message even as a sidebar despite portraying gay men.

I don't know. But the movie has so much more potential to at least introduce the issues I stated. I'd say that Kiruthiga was still conforming to Indian standards of having children and the elite mindset. And that wraps up my disenchantment over this otherwise good movie.