Aabhyanthara Kuttavaali

One must commend Asif Ali for doing a fine job as Sahadevan on the quest for justice. But Sethunath Padmakumar has taken one aspect alone in this story – how a fake case of dowry harassment and domestic abuse is foisted on a good man - and built a case against the law. The story is not juxtaposed against the real cases of scores of women facing domestic abuse and how they struggle to get justice. Moreover, claiming that Section 498A is a bane for all men as it is misused by women is regressive and a slight to all the women who have and are undergoing this plight. Aabhyanthara Kuttavaali has the right idea of talking about men’s rights, but the director and the story are truly misguided.

With a large portion of the film's second half set within a courtroom, the makers take a lot of cinematic liberty to dramatise the proceedings. Asif Ali gets two lengthy monologues where he lists out the consequences of misusing 498A, statistics comparing the suicide ratio of married men and women, questions the practice of alimony, and even brings up an example from the Ramayana to drive home his point. At one point, he even breaks the fourth wall to address things directly to the public. By the end of it, the judge, impressed by Sadhanandan's arguments, urges him to consider taking up LLB! With women empowerment narratives becoming increasingly common, it does make sense that there is a clamour for films that speak for men. Aabhyanthara Kuttavaali does seem to have started at the same point, but as we have seen through films about women empowerment, too, intentions can only take you so far if the writing is flawed, the execution is functional, and your 'villains' are mere caricatures.