Written by: Mira Nair
Starring: Naveen Andrews, Sarita Choudhury, Ramon Tikaram, Rekha, Indira Varma
Rating: [2.5/5]
Appeasing the whims of royalty has solely fit the job description of those within their court, whether this occurs intellectually, emotionally, or physically. These individuals in power often get whatever they want and often a path of luxury appears in finding this appeasement, which we see an example of in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love. A film that has a decent idea but just swallows itself within its own melodrama to take much of what it plays through its story seriously.
A young princess, Tara (Sarita Choudhury) and her servant Maya (Indira Varma) maintain a strong friendship that hits a crossroads when the former gets betrothed to marry Prince Raj Singh (Naveen Andrews). This creates a jealousy from Tara, as the prince immediately grows a lustful attraction to Maya, which pits the two against each other.
Any film donning the name of the famous book about sex enters the fray with expectations of what will transpire with these characters. Plenty of moments between the sheets and doing some of the creative positions referenced in the all too famous book and while this film literally references it to the point where some of the characters actually read it, the tale of love befits more so what this feature wants to focus on. This love does not necessarily solely appear on the dynamic between the men and the women but also the dynamic between Tara and Maya.
These two, as thick as thieves, have lived with a certain dynamic between them because of their status, and the meeting of the Prince and Tara’s betrothal changes everything. Their friendship mutates from very friendly to a competition where Tara sees Maya as a threat, tries to get her out of her life, but then Maya continually finds a way to interject through her body. As you imagine, in these moments is where the whole book comes into play as Maya goes through quite the journey in this feature in the sexual relationships she has with specific men in the story. When following Maya, we get some intriguing moments of character work, but this film really struggles when it comes to the men of the story.
Prince Raj Singh and Jai Kumar (Ramon Tikaram) also have their relationship strained when women become involved with but none of these men really bring anything remotely interesting to the plot. It makes me wish we could have just followed the dynamic of Maya and Tara for the entirety of the film seeing as it makes for something far more intriguing. For the guys, it provides nothing new as they want to mark their territory and claim what they want from these women but the dynamic between the women offers much more. Having that initial friendship as opposed to the one of straight-up employers like the men do allows for an exploration of women friendships that gets torn apart when a male love interest gets involved. We certainly see this play out in spurts but does not get the amount of time it should.
What also does not help its film is its unrelenting melodrama in that it heightens everything to such a ridiculous degree where we really needed some more humor. When scenes and incidents get as heightened as they do here, it just does nothing but elicit an eye roll in those moments of high emotion that do not feel necessarily earned but the film wants to push very hard in somehow manifesting. As much as I can appreciate Mira Nair as a filmmaker and what she brings to the table, she missed the boat on this one.
Certainly will grab the attention of others through its very recognizable title, Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love has a decent idea but fails to capitalize on the potential of its circumstance. It chooses to focus on the elements of this story that did not actually bring much intrigue, when plenty of fertile ground laid right beside it. We certainly get those moments where the Kama Sutra comes into play with Indira Varma doing her best in seducing the men around her but nothing about it comes to fruition to culminate into something that comes together well.
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