Kanam - Me and Ma

Kanam (Tamil)

{Oke Oka Jeevitham (Telugu)}

Tamil, 2022

Director: Shree Karthick

Cast: Sharwanand, Amala, Ritu Varma, Satish, Ramesh Tilak, Nassar

Mohan's Measure ⭐

Mr. Shree Karthick may be a new director but his way of making films certainly isn't. Kanam is the Tamil version of a Telugu movie which takes an original idea and makes it mundane.

The original idea reminds us of Back to the Future. An eccentric old scientist sends a young man back in time to right a wrong. In the process he runs into himself and his mother.

Mother. Ah! Dear Ol' Mater, the very reason for her darling son to grow up to be the neurotic young man he is. But, nonetheless, she makes him forget everything else so that he can try and save her from a fatal accident. 

This mother sentiment overruns what starts off being a comical view of contrast between the 20th and 21st centuries and turns it in to an overtly sentimental tear-jerker for the Norman Bates generation. Indeed, we have absolutely no idea what is happening between him and his dad, who meets him in both times. 

I apologize for being so sarcastic about this. It is not the mother sentiment I challenge. It is its role in a science fiction movie, that too one which featured some underutilized but very talented young stars. 

Kanam could easily have been a wonderful satire, examining how, in just twenty years, India has managed to become an economic success, while devolving into psychological and emotional tragedy. Or it could have been spun into a beautiful tale about a young boy who meets his future adult girlfriend, like Tom Hanks in Big. So many imaginative ways that could have been employed but weren't. 

Perhaps next time the director/writer should seek permission from his mother.