Kuttram Purindhavan Series Review: Pasupathy and Lakshmi Priyaa carry a gripping, pensive and poignant mystery
Kuttram Purindhavan(3 / 5)
Every character in Kuttram Purindhavan battles their own demons. Gautham (Vidaarth) is a recently demoted cop, who is struggling to win the trust of seniors and fully get back into the force. Esther (Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli) has an abusive husband and barely lives for herself, and Bhaskaran (Pasupathy) carries a mountain of secrets within himself, while battling his grandson’s serious brain illness. And what throws these people out of the frying pan and into the fire is Esther’s daughter Mercy’s disappearance. The case has more to do with exposing the psyche of each personality than the case itself. Think of it like a card game where each player’s power, trump and weakness cards are identified, assessed and used in various scenarios unbeknownst to them. Tricky spaces and dark alleyways—but debutant Selvamani Muniyappan doesn’t flinch before letting his viewers into this path where there is no way to return.
Cast: Pasupathy, Vidaarth, Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli and others
Director: Selvamani Muniyappan
Streaming on: SonyLiv
Perhaps, the series’ first drawback is that it gives away the central conflict in its first trailer and animation title card. While this does pull its engaging factor down a notch, it doesn’t stand as a major flaw. The filmmaker keeps enough pulsating points in each episode, not as a mere clickbait strategy, but makes it tight, tense and gripping in its screenplay even when audiences are aware of what will be thrown at them. It is an unlikely move, and a bold one at that, for the filmmaker to throw in all his dice in the first two episodes and build the story from there, betting it all on one powerhouse performer Pasupathy. Let’s just say that long stretches of him utilising a certain ‘cold equipment’ and the heaviness in its unavailability, sends a chill down the spine.
Set within a small village where everyone is a neighbour, and every character is a known person, there are not many turns one can take in a whodunnit to establish the key culprit, but Kuttram Purindhavan keeps the guesses aplenty, especially in the last two climactic episodes.
Guilt is a mighty emotion. And it tugs and pulls Bhaskaran into places he hasn’t seen before. He becomes Lady Macbeth herself, trying to wash off blood from his hands before it is too late. Kuttram Purindhavan offers a rare insight into this guilt that engulfs him throughout the seven episodes, and the emotion that only seems to get stronger with every episode. This guilt also spills over into all his relationships, including his wife, Gautham, townsfolk and even his grandson. The series allows all these scenes to breathe, neither rushing in or dragging to the finish line.
However, Selvamani treads into safe zones towards the final few episodes, and the series could have benefited if it dealt head-on into several grey areas instead of offering an easy solution. After all, humans are complicated beings. Take for instance, Esther. She is a flawed mother and searches for answers in her prayers. She is assertive and expresses her emotions without any filter of second thoughts, and once she makes her choice, she doesn’t allow anyone else to change it. But her character desperately required much more writing than just being depicted as a helpless person, wailing and frantically looking for her daughter. Following a big reveal, the series also drops the ball, not pushing itself with its storyline, and a major chunk of inspiration for the shocking finale seems to have come from the playbook of Drishyam and Secret Window.
However, Kuttram Purindhavan has emerged as one of the most engaging and effective stories to have come out of the Tamil OTT space this year, carrying within itself many tender and meditative moments. Be it when Kayal consoles her father Gautham and understands him for not being her ‘ideal hero cop,’ or the relationship that Bhaskaran’s grandson Rahul and Mercy share among themselves, or a heartwarming scene involving Bhaskaran’s pet Jacky. As Bhaskaran puts it in his own words, “Namakku dhan namma evlo kettavanga nu theriyum” (Only we know how bad we are), the line becomes the moral spine of the show: guilt is never carried by one person alone. In the end, the series reminds us that those who understand their crimes are, perhaps, the ones most desperate to heal from them—the true Kuttram Purindhavargal.
