Malli Modalaindhi Movie Review: Fair share of good ideas that fail to come together cohesively on screen

Love is not eternal and there comes a time in a relationship where you are better without each other than with. Some are able to come to this conclusion without much conflict, but chef Vikram in Malli Modalaindhi struggles with the idea of separating from his wife. Not because he is in love with her still, but because it is a change that he did not expect in life. Pressure, conflict, and confrontation are things that he runs away from. However, he realizes that Nisha, his wife is extremely unhappy with him. From his perspective, she is whiny and naggy but from her perspective, he is emotionally unavailable. He agrees to divorce her without understanding why they have to separate in the first place. 

Cast: Naina Ganguly, Sumanth, Tej Uppalapati, Suhasini Maniratnam
Director: TG Keerthi Kumar
Streaming on Zee5

The idea is golden on paper. It tries to capture the life of a man who tries to move on after his divorce, and maybe find love again. On-screen, however, it hardly translates. The attempt to make it a slice of life film fails. The problem here is the fact that there is no conviction in Vikram's character. His conflicts are unrelatable. For the most part of this film, Vikram is unaware of how problematic he is when it comes to being a partner. Even when he seeks to restart his life, he is not a changed man. He is still the same man that Nisha rightfully found problematic. There is no awareness of where he went wrong in his journey, not until the very end. By then, it is too late to salvage the film. 

Malli Modalaindhi also pitches this grand idea -- a safe space for divorcees which offers them therapy, make them meet people and take the first step to move on in life. But it is reduced where people go on blind dates to find their next respective partner. The problem is not the blind dates. It is the fact that the film uses mental health as bait to connect with their audiences. In reality, however, they do little to nothing to dig into Vikram's mental psyche. Every time he is sad, the film expresses it through the number of beers that he downs. This and burnt food is the only indicator of Vikram's changing moods in the film. The only scene that truly works in the film is when men and women share their experiences of being in a bad marriage. Beyond that, Malli Modalaindhi is a failed attempt at capturing the struggles of divorced people in society. 

Speaking of the female characters, neither Nisha nor Pavi, seem to have a life of their own. The character is entirely written from the perspective of how Vikram perceives them. At the end, when Vikram finally begins to look inwards to find out the root cause of his problems, it is too late. By then, you give up on the film and its characters.