Idli Kadai (Tamil)
Dhanush’s Idli Kadai opens with a disclaimer calling it a fictional story he penned while visiting his native place. And this becomes very obvious, given the superficial writing and texture of a cinematic postcard born from nostalgia and the overromanticisation of the ‘simple’ village life.
This is Dhanush’s third directorial outing after Power Paandi and Raayan. Among the three, Idli Kadai is predictable, preachy, and painfully overfamiliar.
At its heart, Idli Kadai is the story of Sivanesan (Rajkiran), a humble man whose life revolves around his famed idli shop in Madurai’s Sangarapuram village. To him, making idlis isn’t just a profession, it’s a sacred calling. His son Murugan (Dhanush), however, dreams beyond the steam and sambar, yearning for the luxury and opportunities of city life.
After studying catering management, he moves abroad, lands a cushy job, and finds himself engaged to his wealthy boss’s daughter. Yet, for all his material gains, Murugan is hollow inside, stripped of dignity, disconnected from identity, and caught in an existential fog.
Predictably, his father passes away, and Murugan returns home for the funeral. In his hometown, he is confronted with the question of whether to be with his father, who is still lurking around the idli shop in spirit, or return to his dream job.
Idli Kadai quickly falls into a familiar rut, its biggest flaw being predictability. The film rehashes the same ‘urban alienation vs rural authenticity’ trope seen in numerous Tamil films. In fact, the film has the same ‘rich brat vs middle-class boy’ template from Dhanush’s own Velaiyilla Pattathari. The film does not offer anything beyond a bland serving of the same old recipe idly.
The script is wafer-thin. Sivanesan’s obsession with his idli shop is sentimentalised without substance, and the backstory to this devotion is unconvincing.
Meanwhile, Murugan’s romantic relationship with his boss’s daughter feels half-baked, devoid of chemistry or emotional depth. The film’s writing is riddled with surface-level emotions, unable to dig deeper into its characters’ choices or contradictions.
Idli Kadai sells the story of “returning to one’s roots,” but it conveniently sidesteps the uncomfortable realities of rural life, which include caste hierarchies, occupational rigidities, and systemic inequalities. The film’s moral that one must embrace ancestral professions to find fulfilment becomes very problematic.
What if Murugan’s father weren’t an idli shop owner but a cobbler or a manual labourer? Dhanush avoids such questions, settling for a sanitised, feel-good narrative about reclaiming tradition.
Yet, to his credit, Dhanush remains a compelling storyteller. Despite the clichéd script and sentimental excess, he keeps the film watchable through brisk pacing and engaging narration. As an actor, though, he delivers little new. Murugan feels like a clone of Raghuvaran from VIP — same mannerisms, same moral arc — only dressed in a veshti and pattai to signify ‘simplicity.’
The supporting cast doesn’t fare much better. Nithya Menen and Parthiban start with promising Madurai accents, only to abandon them midway. Nithya’s ‘brownface’ is painfully distracting. Her role feels like an extension of the character Shobana from Thiruchitrambalam.
The exceptions are Rajkiran and Sathyaraj, who lend the film some gravitas. Rajkiran embodies Sivanesan’s earthy pride with ease, while Sathyaraj, despite being saddled with a one-note role, elevates his scenes with understated charm.
Overall, Idli Kadai is exactly like an idli, which does not have a taste of its own, but has to rely on side dishes for flavour.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.