Director: Gomtesh Upadhye
Writers: Uday Aghamarshan, Jayanth Tadinada, Kaushik Subrahmanya, Srinivas Avasarala
Cast: Nithya Menen, Gauthami, Thiruveer, Talluri Rameshwari
Duration: 7 episodes, 282 minutes
Available on: Amazon Prime Video
A sense of playfulness in Kumari Srimathi is apparent just with its title. Nithya Menen’s name, Kumari Srimathi, is not just a delightful oxymoron (Kumari means young unmarried woman, and Srimathi means married woman), but one that depicts the leading woman’s struggles in the series.
Menen plays an unmarried woman in her thirties in the Prime Video series. She lives in a village near the Godavari River. We are talking about a neighbourhood where a job is what defines a man and marriage is what defines a woman. When we first see Srimathi, she is chided by her mother Devaki (Gautami) for not getting married. In return, she casually asks her for tea and gets ready to go to work. When she goes to functions, she is questioned by the women. When she goes to the government offices, she is mocked for her name. But Srimathi is selfish and adamant. All she wants is to win back her ancestral house from her uncle, only after which she will get married.
Creator Srinivas Avasarala never gets preachy about this. Instead, the series is sprinkled with humour that makes us look past the seriousness of what Srimathi is going through, while also understanding the issues from her perspective. One of the many ways the writers infuse humour is through Devaki, who is constantly worried about her daughter. When in fear, Devaki begins to daydream with nightmares. For instance, when she sees her daughter go out with a drunkard one day, she dreams of the guy asking her daughter for liquor and side dishes on their first night. But Devaki is a strong single mother. She runs her own catering business and has single-handedly raised both her daughters, while also taking care of her mother-in-law. When the court intimates that Srimathi can buy her ancestral house if she manages to pay ₹39 lakhs to her uncle in six months, she decides to let go of her job and start a business. Srimathi wants to start a restobar in her village near the Godavari River.
Hearing a small-town woman suddenly come up with the idea of opening a bar might sound odd, and it especially does to her mom. A lot of it comes back to how a woman can do this. When Srimathi fights in court for years, Devaki reminds her of her gender and asks what she can possibly achieve alone. Even when people mock her that no one would want to marry a woman who owns a bar, she is unbothered. The beauty of the series lies in the way it depicts the relationship between women from three generations. If we saw the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law talk about sex in Sweet Kaaram Coffee, here, Devaki’s mother-in-law (played by Talluri Rameshwari) tells her she could have gone to a bar in her early days if only she had known how beautiful it looked.
Kumar Srimathi is a very simple and predictable tale. We can all guess if she'd repay the amount. The “how” of it becomes familiar as well. Yet the writing and staging keep us engaged with breezy conversations and humour, and you do not mind overlooking these cinematic liberties. This is especially true when it comes to its character building. For instance, Kumari’s struggle to get her bar licence isn’t as exciting as how her entire inner circle rallies to be by her side when she deals with a minor setback.
There is also a certain maturity you notice in her romance with Abhinav (a pilot in South Africa, played by Thiruveer). They constantly hang out with each other, dropping hints along the way. But finally, when they confess, they jump straight into the topic of marriage and the possibility of shifting to a different country. Similarly, throughout the series, we see Srimathi admire films of Nani, and we get a sweet payoff towards the end. But where the writing falters the most is when it introduces a twist in the end that feels half-baked. The film also has a very meek antagonist — Kumari’s uncle, played by Prem Sagar Rajulapati. But in a simple tale about life, where the only problems are money and marriage, do you need a bigger villain?
Kumari Srimathi mostly makes use of the web series format. It focuses on the little details of Kumari’s daily life, lending it a lived-in feel. That doesn’t mean the series never feels stretched. But whenever it does, Nithya Menen, who radiates Shobana’s charm from Thiruchitrambalam (2022), wins back our attention. The series could also be seen as a study of Kumari’s family of women, which unfortunately lets us know very little about the men in the show. But for a series spinning entirely on a single woman's marriage, it has an unconventional ending. And that feels like a win.