Things happen in Vishwanath & Sons. Lots of things, in fact, but you never learn about their weight. A young woman subjects her body to pregnancy just so she can fund her education. Later, almost on a whim, she decides to give up this hard-earned education. Meanwhile, a man who seems perfectly content being single is rather quickly persuaded to get himself a child. These are momentous choices with profound ramifications, and yet, we are never truly allowed to understand their emotional significance, the marks they leave on the interior lives of these characters.

The premise itself is great: opposites attract (in age, energy level, personality type…). But I’d have especially liked to understand what it all means for Maddy (Mamitha Baiju, who I thought was great, as always). What does it mean for her to have moved on from the baby she carried, only to later be introduced to him again? What does it mean to be referred to as his ‘mother’, even before she’s processed what this reunion means?

Initially, she seems almost detached, too cool to be true, but you can tell there’s a maturity about her too (notice how she goes quiet after an important character dies). Mamitha’s committed performance means that I kept getting the feeling there was more going on inside Maddy than the film let on. But unfortunately, her emotional weather seems to shift according to the needs of the film. Is her detachment self-preservation? Is it practicality? Is there buried affection? Regret? Does she truly see herself as this child’s mother at any point? Does she feel guilty about not doing so (like when she mentions in passing that she wants to stay more for Sanju than the child)? We don’t really know. And for a character who gets as much time in the film, Maddy, I thought, deserved more interest from the film.

I think one issue is that Vishwanath & Sons seems in a real hurry, and doesn’t seem to trust its moments enough to stay with them. In fact, I remember feeling this right from the beginning. There’s a tiny scene in which Sanju (Suriya) walks into a bedroom and takes away a box of chocolates from his supposedly sugar-addicted mother, Mrs Nirmala (Radhika). It’s nothing, really. Just a small mother-son moment. But even here, there are too many angles, too many cuts, too much coverage, resulting in the needless visual fragmentation of a moment that could have been allowed to breathe. It ruined the immersion for me.

I feel like this restlessness isn’t merely visual in this film. It’s emotional too. You can see that whenever Vishwanath & Sons forgets about being a “family entertainer” and shows genuine interest in its people, it threatens to truly come alive. There’s that lovely passing line from Maddy when someone asks which side of the family she’s from: “Naan baby side.” I laughed. Or that solemn stretch after the death of an important character, when Sanju seems to turn into a little boy again. For a few seconds, I saw flashes of the vulnerable Suriya from films like Vaaranam Aayiram and Nandha… I saw the boy behind the man.

It’s especially affecting because Sanju, perhaps on account of his professional reputation, seems to have spent a lifetime walking around suppressing emotion. Maddy even refers to this quality in a conversation with Mrs. Nirmala. But then, the film rushes on. In a way, Sanju’s emotional reluctance is very much like the film’s too, both uncomfortable with staying with a feeling.

Some of the comedy really gets in the way. Mrs Nirmala throwing her footwear at a worker, for instance. Or Sanju finally meeting this young woman who has ‘rented her womb’ to fund her education, only for the film to make her quip, “Enna touch pannaama pregnant aakinadhu needhaane?” You can tell that this is less Maddy saying it and more the writer trying to be clever with the situation. On paper, the women appear to be complex and strong: Maddy, Mrs Nirmala, Anjali (Raveena Tandon). And yet, save for the warmth between Maddy and Mrs Nirmala, largely thanks to two terrific actors, these women seem to operate far below their potential, stepping forward as and when required to satisfy the needs of the film.

Take the central romance itself, for instance. The film is keen to establish Sanju as a noble man who refuses to get involved with Maddy because she’s “too young”. Right, fair enough. But I wondered: wouldn’t Maddy have doubts at all? All right, perhaps her all-consuming attraction to him has something to do with losing her parents early? Perhaps she sees in this much older man a sense of security, an authority figure, a promise of stability she’s never had? Perhaps that’s why that line about “responsibility” affects her as deeply as it does? But the film barely pauses to ask: is this attraction enough to give up the education for which she went through a pregnancy? Maybe it is, but can we feel it with her?

I think Vishwanath & Sons might have found compelling answers to these questions if it weren’t so unquestioningly obedient to the requirements of a commercial template. Hence the songs that struggle to organically exist (the wedding song, in particular). Hence fights that feel forced into the screenplay: first, a pervy restaurant owner; later, a vulgar rowdy with a strange enthusiasm for birthday celebrations. When it’s time for a fight sequence, a stranger conveniently walks in, courting trouble.

All of this is especially frustrating because there are great ideas everywhere. There’s even a beautiful passing detail about Sanju’s stepsister hating him as a child because Sanju, through no real fault of his own, became the source of her pain. In fact, inadvertent hurt seems to be a bit of a theme in this film. The choice of Sanju’s father ends up devastating Sanju. Sanju’s decision to remain single breaks his mother. People keep hurting each other in this film without necessarily intending to. There’s a whole film in there.

But Vishwanath & Sons isn’t focussed enough, isn’t emotionally curious enough, to really investigate these patterns. Instead, we get a thoroughly needless detour to Anjali’s father’s house. Or should I say Sanju’s stepmother’s father’s house? You see the problem? Instead of spending time navigating this complex family tree, I’d rather know more about Maddy.

And perhaps that’s ultimately the problem: the film keeps doing a little more than it needs to. That whole interview sequence, designed to establish Sanju’s generosity through the story of a driver (George Maryan) and his son, seems complete, but then, a stranger in the broadcast room calls his mother because he’s supposedly moved. Later, that idea of Sanju calling himself from his mother’s phone works beautifully for a brief moment, but then, the phone gets switched off, just so we get an extremely obvious metaphor that’s more thought than feeling. That idea of Sanju fulfilling his mother’s unfinished wish by handing jewellery over to his stepsister is lovely too, but then, we see the jewellery boxes plastered with ‘Meghana’ labels, just so it becomes more obvious.

Again and again, Vishwanath & Sons seems afraid that we might miss the point. Again and again, the film chooses width when it would have been better off going for depth.