Ek Mini Katha movie review: Debutant director Karthik Rapolu and screenwriter Merlapaka Gandhi squander away a relevant and compelling subject in Ek Mini Katha.
In Ek Mini Katha, it all begins when a seventh-grader looks at the private part of his friend, while both are at the school toilet and asks, “Why is your penis is so small?” Now the kid is understandably dazed and confused by his friend’s assessment of his pee-pee. And he makes the right choice to seek clarification from his father. Back from school, the boy tells his father, who is interestingly a college professor, “I have a doubt.” The father is more than happy to help him but only if his doubts are in maths, science or social. The father loses it and let him have it, when the boy says, “My doubt is in my shorts.”
That doubt of the seventh-grader remains unresolved even after he becomes an adult. And it has infested every aspect of his life and continues to torment him even in his 20s. Santosh (Santosh Shoban) suffers from small penis syndrome. For no fault of his own, he has put inflated importance on the size of his penis. He is a fairly successful man with a well-paying job and he’s handsome. But, he’s not happy because he has tied his self-worth to the size of his penis.
Debutant director Karthik Rapolu and screenwriter Merlapaka Gandhi have a relevant and compelling subject in Ek Mini Katha. And they both have turned in a movie that offers genuine moments of laughter and a few unexpected comedic twists. That, alas, is all the film has to offer. You laugh at a series of jokes concerning rather a common complaint among men about the size of their penis. And you hope down the line, the filmmakers will lead you into a mental space of the protagonist, but it never happens. The film gets very generic in the second half.
Everyone wants sex, but nobody wants to talk about it. Our tendency to tip-toe around the subject, the shame and stigma attached to it, deprives the children of the most basic and vital knowledge that would go a long way in making their adolescent years a bit less challenging and confusing. Instead of discussing the actual problem at the centre of the film, the filmmakers only try to stretch the humour around the misconception that size matters the most. The filmmakers also become clueless about what to do with the female lead character Amrutha, played by Kavya Thapar. Amrutha is introduced as a smart and independent girl. After marriage, however, she disappears into daily household chores as the hero wallows in his own sorrow. There is also a glamorous, weed-smoking, woman sage, played by Shraddha Das. She is just meant to serve as eye candy and a distraction as the filmmakers don’t have anything substantial and worthwhile to offer.
Ek Mini Katha is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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