“Why?” is the first thought that pops up when you see there’s a sequel to Gutta Kusthi.
It’s not that the first part was bad, but the question is a genuine wonderment about what warrants a sequel to the world of Gutta Kusthi. That question doesn’t linger for long, though, because Chella Ayyavu comes up with a convincing conflict that stops the film from becoming yet another vacuous project riding on the success of the hit first part. The first part asked: what if an uneducated, regressive but kind-hearted man ends up with an educated, empowered and compromising woman? It had a happy ending, with the man finally realising his sexism and reconciling with his wife. The second part now poses another question: what if that progressive man, now settled into being a house-husband, is pushed to his limits as the world around him continues to be regressive?
The sexist is now a house-husband
The film opens with Veera (Vishnu Vishal) meal-prepping in the morning at home. He wakes up, makes fruit juice and a nut milkshake, prepares all-organic homemade food, and heads to the ground. The big reveal is that all this is for his wife, who is now competing at the state-level wrestling championship, much to the annoyance of her competitors at the academy. A man who once dreamed of a wife who could do all this for him is now a subservient husband — one who also seems to relish taking care of not just his wife, but their daughter and the home too. He has become a favourite among the women in the community, who are floored by his cooking skills and his complete lack of male ego. The husbands, meanwhile, scheme and fume over the affection their wives have for him — especially the neighbour, played by Karunakaran, who is insecure enough to start an Instagram page called House Husband, posting videos and pictures of Veera’s cooking. The move backfires as Veera becomes an internet sensation and ends up on the radar of a views-hungry YouTube channel.
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Meanwhile, Keerthi (Aishwarya Lekshmi), an undefeated player at the state and central government level, aspires to the national championship. Like in the first part, the villain here is also a coach, played by Tarak Ponnappa. Keerthi’s relentless growth upsets him, since she credits Veera for her success — so he manipulates and schemes against her, exploiting the friction between the couple. The central conflict, though, is how Keerthi’s pursuit renders her unavailable for her daughter. Keerthi also discourages her daughter’s interest in dancing and forces her to become a wrestler instead. This further strains the bond between Keerthi and Veera, which finally explodes beyond repair when Veera’s ill-informed attempt to help Keerthi backfires, getting her banned from the sport for a year.
Progressive make-up over dated DNA
Gutta Kusthi and its sequel are films made with full awareness of the issues women face in society. But while the film constantly pretends to take the side of women, it betrays an innate sexism that no amount of conscious layering can cover. It’s a film that champions women’s empowerment in one scene, then cuts to a close-up of a woman’s navel in the next. These gratuitous moments come courtesy of a badly written character, Meenu, Veera’s daughter’s class teacher — the sexualised archetype that has persisted since the days of Naattamai in Tamil cinema, existing solely to stir jealousy in the heroine.
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As in the first part, this one too suggests that women’s empowerment comes at a cost. Keerthi’s pursuit costs her child’s studies, relegates her husband to household chores and turns the family into an “unconventional” setup. At one point, Keerthi even berates Veera for being a house-husband and he wonders how anyone can be progressive in a society that doesn’t reward it — and worse, punishes it. While the argument sounds valid, there’s an inherent problem: Ayyavu cleverly avoids imagining a middle ground. The film subtly insists that someone has to be the “quintessential” homemaker. It’s not just Veera — even Ratnam, the staunch chauvinist, becomes a house-husband once his wife becomes the village Sarpanch. Ayyavu, it seems, can’t imagine a family where both partners simultaneously pursue their passions; instead, the film treats family as a matter of one partner sacrificing for the other’s betterment.
Undercutting tonal shift
Then there’s Gutta Kusthi‘s brand of humour, which saves the day. Zara Zyanna, who plays the lead couple’s daughter, is effortlessly funny. At one point she quips, “Unmaila ivan thaan enna petha thaai ya pa? (Is he actually the one who birthed me?)” — a line that instantly draws a smile. Karunas, as Ratnam, is at his sexist best and the film mines maximum comic mileage from his regressive attitude. But the film breaks from the serious tone it establishes early on, settling instead for easy laughs. Post-interval, it slides into a zone of illogical humour that undercuts all the seriousness it built up in the first half.
This tonal shift coincides with the entry of a surprise cameo — from there, Gutta Kusthi 2 becomes a different animal altogether. All the messaging and storytelling take a backseat and the film enters “what is going on?” territory.
All for women’s empowerment but…
Veera’s predicament, in fact, recalls Pandiarajan’s Gopala Gopala and the film is cut from the same DNA as the works of the recently deceased veteran K. Bhagyaraj, in which family and tradition remain sacrosanct and any liberation or progress for women is permitted only within those boundaries.
Films like these make their case wearing the guise of humour and drama — a device that works well enough to entertain in the moment, but grows problematic the moment you probe beneath the surface.
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