Cross-cultural sagas have a way of grazing the soul, and watching Param Sundari shall make you feel it in the nerve. Helmed by Tushar Jalota and produced by Dinesh Vijan, this romantic drama is a myriad of emotion, music, and the intricate dance between tradition and modernity. It’s nuanced love where hearts contradict, cultures entangle, and love finds its cadence in the most unanticipated places.
Sidharth Malhotra plays it straight. No over-the-top theatrics, no calculative measure to charm the audience into submission. He understands the role—he’s not here to be a hero, he’s here to be a man caught between pride, habit, and something that jeopardises to undo both. Opposite him, Janhvi Kapoor carries the weight of the film’s emotional arc. She doesn’t push too tough, and that works for the narrative. There’s a certain steadiness in how she navigates love, language, and expectation—all without slipping into the usual South Indian trope-fest that Bollywood can’t seem to quit.
The script resists the impulse to spell everything out. There’s cultural friction, yes, but not the kind that gets played up for punchlines. What Param Sundari is more interested in is silence—the kind that sits between two people when words fail, or the kind that hums in a room full of relatives who don’t know how to speak the same truth. It’s surprisingly self-aware in that way. It knows the story has been told before. It just chooses to tell it without the noise.
And then there’s the music. Not ornamental, not mood candy. Just sharp, well-placed, and occasionally more articulate than the dialogue. Danger is a slow burn. Bheegi Saree is where the film catches its breath. Pardesiya is the one that will likely outlive the movie’s shelf life. None of them exist in isolation—they work because they’re embedded into the emotional rhythm of the film.
Of course, there will be comparisons—2 States, Chennai Express, whatever comes to mind when a North-meets-South plotline shows up. But Param Sundari isn’t really in conversation with those films. It’s not trying to update them, critique them, or outdo them. It just moves differently. Less noise, more feeling. Less performance, more presence.
What you’re left with isn’t a grand love story, but a patient one. And in the current climate of Hindi cinema, that patience feels almost radical.
IWMBuzz rates it 3.5/5 stars.
