Ikkat Review : A self-contained comedy that teaches us to smile at our shortcomings at connecting with our loved ones.

The pandemic has changed the way we look at our lives in ways more than one. There has been no medium like cinema that has been able to use the pandemic to its favour with filmmakers and writers forced to come up with self-contained ideas that reflect the dread and paranoia surrounding covid. However, the sub-genre of “Pandemic cinema” gets its latest upgrade in the form of a inventive comedy from Kannada industry, known primarily for its mainstream content. Ikkat is a delicious joy ride of a film that has premiered on Amazon Prime video, the go to destination for regional content these days. The film mostly set within a lean residential apartment is about a young couple who are forced to put up with each other during the very first pandemic induced lockdown in the country. The movie tracks their journey over the 21 days period and provide an answer to question, will they finally budge and go for a divorce? Or do they fight back the demons?

We get a constantly bickering couple on the brink of a divorce pushed off by the lockdown, a tick tock lover (you read that right!) and a long lost vagabond uncle who form the major players of a feather light, clever comedy with solid writing. The film tries to take a jab at the almost ironical world of covid that can mend or break married relationships unlike earlier times, with couples languishing at maintaining sanity with each other’s company. The duality of this kind of experience is explored through a newly married couple from varied backgrounds, the husband being a town bred guy and the wife tracing her roots back to a village, that too a jungle which is thrown around during arguments to slander her upbringing .

 The movie is told in chapters focusing on their gradual descent into madness propelled by the husbands growing fear of a supernatural presence in the house and the wife’s attempts at providing shelter to a uninvited guest trapped within their home. The husband Vasu ( Nagabhushana) and the wife Janhavi ( Bhoomi Shetty) slowly don’t have many people in their daily circles other than a nosy neighbor who drops by frequently for Cigarettes and liquor and this leads to some funny exchanges as teetotaler Vasu is shocked to learn that his wife stores cigarettes and liquor to enhance her Tik Tok videos , which has made her famous in online circles.

One of the funniest sequences in the film comes halfway, with a hilarious reference to the vessel thumping act of the first wave, where the wife is forced to accompany the vessel thumping in order to protect her secret guest from being spotted by her husband and cheeky uncle. The scene beautifully captures the dilemma of the characters caught in one place with nowhere to go. The comedy serves as the USP of the contained film and the directors bring in a lot of nuances to the humour with the neighbor reporting a family as being possibly covid positive as he doubts that their son is in love with his daughter , an gluttonous uncle who never stops eating with a chronic cough to the horror of the couple who doubt him to be infected. The writing is clean and mines the premise to its brim. Ikkat is a peculiar product of our times which tackles some serious issues with a sugary touch and a film that never takes itself seriously. This one can serve as the best watch amidst a pandemic which offers us a chance to laugh at our own shortcomings to communicate well to each other.