Kushi movie review: When love and acceptance is convoluted

Cast: Vijay Deverakonda, Samantha Ruth PrabhuDirector: Shiva NirvanaKashmir, religion, love jihad, Hindutva and superstitious. Kushi, starring Vijay Deverakonda and Samantha Ruth Prabhu takes on all of these socio-political conflicts, not to portray a visceral and effecting story but romance and melodrama. These conflicts provide fodder that is clickbaity enough to draw the crowd in as it is laced with humor. So it is no surprise then that the film ends up becoming way too convoluted. Viplav (Vijay Deverakonda) works at the telephone exchange in Kashmir, and after his chance meeting with Ara 'Begum' (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) he falls in love.In an attempt to establish that Viplav's love is beyond religion, the film chooses Kashmir as a set-up. Is it tone-deaf? Yes! Will filmmakers continue to use the Kashmir conflict as a plot device? Looks like it. In fact, from the very beginning, Kushi made me uncomfortable. The film tries to tell audiences that only women in burqa are safe in a place such as Kashmir. It has a Hindu girl dressed in a burqa visiting a temple. After the hijab row, and the apparent Islamophobia in our country, this set-up could have been used to portray inclusivity and a sense of brotherhood and belonging. Instead, we get men dressed in Muslim attire drawing weapon against a group of people belonging to another religion.As if this weren't enough, there is another layer to this story. What happens when an atheist falls in love with a believer? This is not a believer who keeps her faith personal, but the kind that also believes in superstitions, to the extent that she a black cat is bad omen in her life. Her father speaks of nothing but the God, God's teaching and so on. Viplav's father, on the other hand, believes in nothing but science. Can Aradhya and Viplav really overcome the differences in their belief system and their upbringing? In the honeymoon period, none of this seem to matter. However, as days pass and conflict of a failed pregnancy enters their relationship, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.Aradhya, who buries the believer in her and forsakes her faith for the time being is forced to ponder on the words of her father, a pandit who had foretold that her relationship with Viplav was fated to fail. She wonders if one 'homam' can really resolve all the issues and misunderstanding that had recently cropped up in her relationship and addresses the same to Viplav. Her father is after all not a quack in her eyes. It is at this moment that we begin to wonder, what of love and acceptance beyond faith?The film did find its way to acceptance towards the very end, yes, but what of all the moments before. Ones where the film did nothing but establish the fact that differences would only lead to misery in a relationship? To establish that the opposite of the conflict is true, no time in spent and instead, we now see the focus of the film shift from differences in faith to pregnancy. Convoluted sounds like an understatement at this point.In that vein, Kushi is a missed chance. In a country where extremists seek life in the name of love jihad, it could have really fostered love and acceptance. It could have been heart melting and mesmerizing. Instead, we have something forgettable. The music is honestly the only redeeming factor in this film that is ridden with too many ideas.Rating: 2 (out of 5 stars)Priyanka Sundar is a film journalist who covers films and series of different languages with a special focus on identity and gender politics.