Sweet Kaaram Coffee Review: Lakshmi is the backbone of this series that works better at times than as a whole

Title: Sweet Kaaram coffee

Form: Madhoo, Lakshmi and Santhy

Drivers: Enjoy Nambiar, Krishna Marimuthu and Swathi Raghuraman

Stream on: Amazon Prime video

Language: Tamil with dubs in Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi

Short content:

Three women go on a road trip to take a break from their lives; this particular storyline is nothing new. While Sweet Kaaram Coffee has its moments, it chooses to stick to the clichés associated with the genre. Of course, something does not become bad because it is full of clichés. An example of this in the recent past is the Dhanush-Nithya Menon star Thiruchitrambalam, a film that showed that clichés, if executed well, can elicit emotions in the audience.

But this is where Sweet Kaaram Coffee falters. The series is about women’s wants and desires as well as male validation. It tries to be both The Great Indian Kitchen and Hum Saath Saath Hain. By the end of the series, you’ll be scratching your head over what the creators really want to say.

Three women from three generations

Sweet Kaaram Coffee is about three women: grandmother Sundari (Lakshmi), mother Kaveri (Madhoo), and daughter Nivedita (Santhy Balachandran).

Sundari’s husband passed away a year ago and her son loves her dearly. But to her, he’s a hostel security guard who constantly checks on her, and all she wants is to get out of that house. Her character is the one we look for the most. Much of the credit for that has to go to Lakshmi’s touching performance. When her granddaughter makes fun of her for pronouncing the name of only one social media site correctly, she’s not offended by the joke. Sundari is not gloomy after being told that she can only pronounce one name correctly. Rather, she is glad that she at least pronounced it correctly.

Her granddaughter, Nivedita, is a cricketer. But her boyfriend gives her an ultimatum to choose between him or cricket. His reason is that his family would never accept a woman who plays cricket as his wife. When Nivedita first comes to his house, he wants her to help his mother by giving the drinks to the guests. He takes the tray full of glasses of water and hands it from his mother to Nivedita. She gives a quick look of dissatisfaction, but agrees to do so. For him, she is the one who now has to do all the household chores.

Nivedita’s mother and Sundari’s daughter-in-law is Kaveri. She feels that not only is she looked down upon by the men in her life, but also by the other two women. Her whole life revolves around her family. When the trip is planned, Kaveri is the one who is most reluctant. Her daughter wants to get over her breakup and her mother-in-law wants to get out of the confines of home. But Kaveri is happy where she is. But throughout the journey, it turns out, she was the one who wanted it most. Kaveri is the most complicated role of the three, but Madhoo’s performance is the weakest. The actress has a very likeable presence but goes overboard with her expressions.

What works and what doesn’t

There are certain moments in the series that work really well. For Nivedita, Friends is the American sitcom, but for Kaveri, it is the 2001 Vijay-Suriya film. The conversation between the mother and daughter on this subject is sure to bring a smile to your face. Likewise, two moments, one between a father and a son and another between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law, work really well. The series has a lot of wonderful moments but fails to watch it as a whole.

There is also a cameo that surprises you. A character from another popular series on Amazon Prime makes an appearance in this one. It was certainly a shocking moment, or maybe it wasn’t, because this is the season for creating movie universes. Is this the start of an Amazon Prime Universe? We have to find out. But the way that character is mixed with the plot of Sweet Kaaram Coffee is just fantastic. It’s not a cameo for cameo’s sake. On the other hand, it serves a purpose.

The flashback sequences of both Nivedita and Kaveri are weakly written, especially the latter’s. It doesn’t feel as effective as Lakshmi’s. Created by Reshma Ghatala and directed by Bejoy Nambiar, Krishna Marimuthu and Swathi Raghuraaman, the series inadvertently glorifies marriage and motherhood.

READ ALSO: EXCLUSIVE: Here’s the REAL truth behind Samantha Ruth Prabhu’s rumored bust