Love across cultures has long been a favourite subject in Bollywood. In the recent decade, we have seen it play out with massive box-office pull in films like Chennai Express (2013) and 2 States (2014). Both took the classic “North boy meets South girl” arc, mixing comedy and conflict with romance. But the difference between them and the newly released Param Sundari shows just how little Bollywood has evolved in its portrayal of South India.With Chennai Express, the film leaned heavily into caricatures of Tamil culture—cartoonish accents, exaggerated rituals, and broad comic stereotypes that many viewers rightly criticised. Yet, the film somehow worked. Why? Because Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone brought authenticity and warmth to their characters. Rahul wasn’t just “the Punjabi boy,” he was a man suffocated by family duty. Meenamma wasn’t just “the Tamilian girl,” she was a young woman brave enough to break free. Their emotional chemistry anchored the film, and audiences forgave the stereotyping because the romance felt genuine.In 2 States, too, Krish and Ananya weren’t defined solely by being Punjabi and Tamil. They were ambitious individuals whose relationship blossomed in college. The real conflict came later, when family dynamics and prejudices kicked in—a reality that resonates with nearly every Indian couple. The awkward encounters with in-laws, the quiet resistance from relatives, and the climactic temple scene didn’t feel like manufactured drama; they reflected the emotional labour of making love survive in a family-centric culture. It too had its flaws, but its portrayal of real troubles connected with its audience.Fast forward to 2025, and along comes Param Sundari—a painful reminder that nothing has changed in these ten years. Bollywood is still unwilling to understand the South beyond a postcard version.Janhvi Kapoor’s character is introduced as “the girl from Kerala,” and that’s where her identity starts and ends. She climbs coconut trees, befriends an elephant, loses her parents, sacrifices her Mohiniyattam dreams, runs a homestay because her uncle says so, and agrees to marry his son because—again—he says so. She is less a character and more a checklist of stereotypes.ALSO READ | Param Sundari movie review: Sidharth Malhotra-Janhvi Kapoor film struggles to find both rom and comSiddharth Malhotra’s Param fares no better. He is the cliched rich brat with no respect for money, who invests recklessly in start-ups and travels to Kerala to prove to his father that an app can find his soulmate. He neither understands nor attempts to understand Janhvi’s world. His only gesture of effort is diving into a lake for her mother’s ring—romantic on paper, but hollow in execution. And yet, we are told their love is real.Story continues below this adScenes that should have been emotionally rich instead feel hollow. The Onam celebration looks staged rather than immersive. Kerala’s cuisine, which could have served as a beautiful cultural bridge—like the scene where Janhvi’s younger sister Ammu (Inayat Verma) calls Param to have Sadya (a traditional vegetarian meal served on a banana leaf during Onam)—is reduced to token dishes with no storytelling weight. Even Janhvi’s supposed passion for Mohiniyattam—a chance to give her individuality—loses impact when the camera spends more time focusing on Param and Venu than on her performance. While they fail at capturing cultural aesthetics, they still had a chance of succeeding like Chennai Express by focusing on the characters and their inner conflicts. But they failed there too.The film could have survived if it had leaned into Janhvi’s dilemma—torn between choosing the “safe” Venu or the unpredictable Param. Or leaving all this behind to pursue Mohiniyattam. The advice from Ammu could have been a turning point when she delivers the line: “You only live once. Tum dusro ko kaise khush rakhogi agar khud hi khush nahi rahogi?” In that moment, we glimpse the film that could have been a story about an orphan who decides to live life on her own terms and then taking us through its consequences. That would have felt real, because in real life, choosing oneself comes with consequences, especially in a society where self-care is treated like crime—where people leave no stone unturned in putting you on a guilt trip, sometimes making you count the things they once did for you and how you should repay them by sacrificing your happiness. That’s exactly what Janhvi does when she gives up her passion and blindly agrees to marry Venu against her wishes.Param Sundari could have been the rare Bollywood film to explore how intercultural love truly begins after the supposed “happy ending” or the consequences of choosing oneself over society’s expectations. Imagine if the second half had explored how Param and Sundari actually try to build a life together after she considering her own happiness chose him over Venu.Do they learn and embrace each other’s rituals? Do they create new traditions of their own? Do they clash when their values or habits don’t align? Do families truly accept them, or do they quietly guilt-trip the couple for stepping outside community lines?Story continues below this adThis is the space where Param Sundari could have stood out, because it would have mirrored real life. Couples in the real world struggle with these exact questions—what to eat, how to celebrate festivals, how to raise children, how to balance family obligations. Some thrive, some compromise, and some, like Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukerji in Chalte Chalte, discover that love can crumble when lifestyle differences grow too sharp. Showing this messy, complicated reality would not only have been relatable, it would have made Param Sundari unique.Their love could have blossomed through shared effort: him attending her Mohiniyattam performance with pride, her slowly learning to trust his flaws, the two of them creating their own rituals—maybe celebrating Onam and Lohri together, or inventing a new tradition that belonged to neither family but to them alone. And maybe, instead of an unrealistically illogical ending, the film could have left us with a more honest one: families still skeptical, differences still alive, but the couple standing strong—not because love is easy, but because they choose to work for it every day.ALSO READ | A Malayali reviews Param Sundari: Sidharth Malhotra-Janhvi Kapoor film is an overstuffed showcase of every stereotype associated with KeralaThat could have been a story worth telling—messy, layered, hopeful, and real. Instead, the film resorts to an implausible ending where Janhvi abruptly abandons her wedding and, by sheer coincidence, drifts in a bowl boat to the exact spot where Siddharth is struggling in the water after being chased for deceiving her. She pulls him in, and the two seal it with a kiss—an unconvincing conclusion to an otherwise promising setup.Story continues below this adBy flattening its leads into stereotypes and refusing to dive into the authentic struggles of intercultural love, Param Sundari becomes a half-told story. It had all the ingredients—romance, culture, conflict, and an opportunity to explore what love really looks like when two worlds collide. But in trying to replicate the surface-level formula of earlier successes, it forgot what made them magical: characters who felt human first, cultural symbols second.In the end, Param Sundari doesn’t just fail its characters; it fails its audience, who deserved a love story that reflected truth instead of masquerade.