Kalathil Santhippom is a multistarrer drama that has Jiiva, Arulnithi, Manjima Mohan and Priya Bhavani Shankar in the lead roles, and Radha Ravi, Robo Shankar, Bala Saravanan among others in crucial supporting roles. It is directed by N Rajasekhar and produced by RB Choudary under the banner Super Good Films. The film has music by Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography by Abinandhan Ramanujam.
Anand (Arulnithi) and Ashok (Jiiva) are rivals on the Kabaddi court but are the thickest of friends outside it. The film essentially is a drama that explores the hurdles they face together with regards to their families and personal romantic relationships, and how they overcome all that.
Right from establishing the characters' friendship, cliches galore in the film. For instance, their introduction involves Arulnithi fighting goons when one of them insults Jiiva, and saying dialogues on the lines of "I won't spare anyone who speaks ill about my friend". Then there's a song that tells us how good they are as humans because they do everything for their town people, like donating blood. While there's nothing wrong with this, it doesn't seem to have any impact on the rest of the film.
Jiiva and Arulnithi's matured performances offers a lot of support to the middling film, and in a way shoulders the film throughout. When the writing should have done more to elevate the characters of the lead actors, here it's the exact opposite. Thankfully, the film's romantic portions don't seem force-fitted and appears on screen organically. This can be seen in the introduction of Sophia (Priya Bhavani Shankar) which happens midway through the second half because that's what the film requires. Such decisions in the writing and editing works well for the film.
Even though she gets a small screentime, Priya Bhavani Shankar aces the role to perfection, while actors like Robo Shankar, Radha Ravi and Bala Saravanan excel in parts. Manjima Mohan on the other hand gets a meaty role and she is convincing. A few of the supporting characters could have had properly fleshed out arcs, but it's forgivable.
Though Robo Shankar's comedy is hilarious at various places, we see him talking almost in every frame, even when there's no requirement. Whenever there's a serious scene going on screen, it inadvertently ends with a Robo Shankar counter that feels like someone from a nearby seat is offering running commentary to what's happening. Bala Saravanan's measured jokes land well and their combination scenes with the lead actors have good chemistry and make the film far better.
On the technical side, Yuvan Shankar Raja's background score complements the film well but the same cannot be said of the songs which misses the Yuvan touch. The introduction song lacked the energy while the others served as speed breakers to the screenplay. Abinandhan Ramanujam's cinematography gave the film what it exactly needed. He's done a neat job and the visuals offer a rich look to the film.
Overall, Kalathil Santhippom is watchable for the chemistry between the leads and also for some light hearted scenes, in spite of the logical flaws. This might also be ones of those films that families can definitely spend time over the weekend because of the extremely clean content.