The Great Indian Kitchen review: Stark share of reality

The Great Indian Kitchen (Malayalam)

Neestream

Rate: 4/5

Cast: Nimisha Sajayan and Suraj Venjaramoodu

Director: Jose Baby

Much like the title reveals, ‘The Great Indian Kitchen’ is about women and the kitchen, and all that ‘is not great’ about it.

The story starts off with a girl-seeing tradition, and the awkwardness between two strangers, played by Nimisha Sajayan and Suraj Venjaramoodu, which slowly changes after they get married. The wife who adjusts to the family’s tradition slowly gets entrapped in them. So much so, that even while she is having sex with her husband, all she can think of is a leaking pipe in the kitchen and the foul smell on her fingers.

The film’s biggest irony is that the husband is a Sociology teacher who talks about the perfect definition of a family, yet is not able to have one.

The focus of the film is the plight of the non-glamorous character of Nimisha. The scenes in the film, are in fact so true to life that they will remind you of many women in your own life. The main characters do not have names, for the very fact that this is not just their story, but of many around us.

After ‘Salt and Pepper’ and 'Ustad Hotel', this might be the next film in Malayalam, which shows food with its little nuances in such detail. But, more than the lip-smacking food and taste, it focuses on the troubles that come with cooking and cleaning, and frustration that can pile up because of it.

The film deals with cleanliness in many senses –women struggling to keep their kitchens clean, men maintaining their ‘purity’ during their Sabarimala fast, and women who are on their periods, being isolated from the family and kitchen.

The story gives emancipation to the main character but doesn’t talk about what can be done to relieve others from the ‘great’ kitchen. But that is probably the film’s intention – to not be preachy.

In a film stretching to around 1 hour 40 minutes, the story moves fast for more than an hour, after which the audience will start deducing the expected result and impatiently wait for it.

Joe Baby has directed and written the story impressively well. The film has some single-shot sequences in it, which shows the excellence of the cameraman.

A must watch for every man of a household.