Featuring one of A.R. Rahman’s most outstanding songs (the title track), this is a generally solid work from Mani Ratnam about the complicated dynamics of family, with parts of it set against the context of Sri Lankan militancy. 

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My second Mani Ratnam film, after the unforgettable Bombay (1995), Kannathil Muthamittal (or ‘A Peck on the Cheek’) is a generally solid work from one of contemporary Indian cinema’s preeminent directors. 

While it doesn’t have the vigour and urgency of Bombay, Kannathil boasts a story that deals with the complicated dynamics of family. 

A young girl is told the truth of her birth when she turns nine—that her current mother and father aren’t her biological parents—lighting a fuse in the narrative that first begins as a gentle, warm-spirited affair. 

While the theme of adoption poses plenty of questions about parent-child relationships that aren’t biological, Ratnam isn’t content with delivering a story that just centers entirely on that. 

“We decided to tell her the truth on her ninth birthday.”

He sets the story (at least a significant part of the latter half of Kannathil) against the context of Sri Lankan militancy, namely the Tamil Tigers who were fighting for freedom (that’s what I remembered from my Social Studies classes in secondary school). 

While the armed conflict isn’t as integral to Kannathil as the religiously-charged riots were to Bombay, Ratnam does feature several intense scenes of violence. 

However, Kannathil always returns to its more sentimentalist underpinnings, none more explicit than its emotion-laden climax, which may be overly melodramatic to some. 

Kannathil is a good place to start if you are new to more mainstream Tamil cinema.  It also features a title track (both male and female versions) that is one of A.R. Rahman’s most outstanding songs.

Grade: B+

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