‘Gatta Kusthi 2’ movie review: Double the fun, same old pitfalls

When director Chella Ayyavu’sGatta Kusthi released in 2022, it turned out to be quite a successful fixture for both Vishnuu Vishal and Aishwarya Lekshmi, becoming a hit that furthered its momentum on post-theatrical streaming. However, I must confess that I was amongst the minority of audiences who despised much of the film vehemently — sure it had pockets of fun and a quirky onliner, however, at the end of the day, it was a highly regressive one-trick-wonder masquerading as a progressive film standing up for women. So you must imagine the kind of expectations I would have set for the sequel, releasing four years later.

However, I am to report with surprise thatGatta Kusthi 2 not only betters its predecessor but also comes close — just about — to redeeming the problems in the first film. Six years after the events of the first film, Veera (Vishnuu) is no longer the poster boy of patriarchy that he was — and director Chella pushes him to the other extreme for cinematic purposes. Veera is now a docile househusband who accompanies his wrestler wife, Keerthy (Aishwarya), to her matches with refreshments in hand, takes care of their school-going child, Mathi Malar (Zara Zyanna), and teaches aerobics to housewives in his neighbourhood.

Gender roles are so rigidly affixed in this world, as in ours, that the film looks at Veera’s identity as a househusband through a heightened lens — it threatens the manhood of the husbands of his neighbours, causes troubles in Mathi’s classroom, has spoiled his relationship with his uncle Rathnam (Karunaas), and ends up playing a central role in the conflict that arises between him and his wife. A manipulative wrestling coach (Tarak Ponnappa), jealous of Keerthy’s success, uses Veera’s domestic worries to dismantle Keerthy’s wrestling dreams, setting off the story of Gatta Kusthi 2.

How everything fits seamlessly in the narrative is what captures one’s attention. In the first instalment, there’s a setup surrounding a video clip that Veera’s friend Sattam (Kaali Venkat) would have shot of Veera before the wedding. Similarly, many details in Gatta Kusthi 2 find a suitable situation for a pay-off — the most playful of which is Mathi’s affinity for dancing, which recurs in a scene that left the hall in splits. One can even say that the humour in the sequel worked far better than in the first feature.

Chella Ayyavu also fixes two key blots in his material. It had infuriated one to see Gatta Kusthi end Keerthy’s wrestling dreams ambiguously, as she vowed to make her newborn daughter a wrestling champion. Here, Keerthy not only gets all the agency that an ambitious sportswoman deserves, but the film also actually sits down with how she thrusts her dreams onto her child — Chella makes a case for both why it isn’t ideal to decide for your children and why girl children need to pick up self-defence in a growingly unsafe world. Further, after failing to give Veera’s aunt, Padma Rathnam (Lizzie Antony), agency and a sense of closure in the first film, Chella does well in the sequel, as she finally shows her husband his place.

Just as everything seems to be going smoothly, a cringeworthy courtroom scene featuring Ramya Krishnan in a cameo signals what is to come. The director, once again struggling to wrap it all up, once again resorts to a couple of brain-numbingly regressive tropes. In both the Gatta Kusthi films, women’s bodies are bafflingly used against themselves. Just ahead of their wrestling match in the first film, Keerthy, a trained wrestler, becomes pregnant, paving the way for a heroic climax for her husband, who had trained for merely 15 days. The climax in the second film, too, is a cop-out, but two regressive ideas are thrown in the ring instead of one.

The last thirty minutes of Gatta Kusthi 2 almost upend all the good it had done till then, and many arcs — like the fate of the nefarious coach and whether Mathi will choose wrestling — end abruptly, making one wonder if the fight will be taken to a third round. After all, the sequel has much more going for it than the first instalment, and so one can indeed expect everyone involved in the project to see the fruits of success — especially Vishnuu and Aishwarya, who have given their absolute best. Everyone will rejoice, except the film’s central character, Keerthy. For all that she is put through in the film’s climactic sequence, one hopes her glorious epilogue scene marks her final bow from our screens.

Gatta Kusthi 2 is currently running in theatres