Suriya’s Vishwanath and Sons draws flak for regressive themes

Hindustan Times reports that Suriya's new film Vishwanath & Sons, touted as a family entertainer, has been criticised for its regressive portrayal of gender roles and relationships. The review notes that the film romanticises obsessive love and stalking when the pursuer is a woman, calling it the 'reverse-Raanjhanaa syndrome'. The protagonist Sanjay (Suriya) is a bachelor who fathers a son via surrogacy, and the surrogate mother Maddy (Mamitha Baiju) falls for him despite his repeated rejections.

The review points out that Maddy, an orphan in her early 20s pursuing a medical degree, abandons her ambitions and dignity to chase the much older Sanjay. A line by Raveena Tandon's character, 'If a woman wants to marry you, she will marry you, and you will have little control over it', is flagged as troubling. The film also treats a mother's acceptance of her husband's affair as a normal family dynamic, reinforcing outdated notions.