Reputed Mollywood director Renji Panicker has voiced his displeasure about the barrage of trolls and jokes on the Bollywood film Param Sundari. The rom-com, starring Sidharth Malhotra and Janhvi Kapoor in lead roles, released on 29th August 2025 to largely negative reviews.
The Tushar Jalota-directorial ended up as a losing venture at the box office with the worldwide gross finishing under Rs 100 crore. Set in Kerala, a major plot point in the film was about the state's cultures and female protagonist (Janhvi Kapoor) who is a native half-Malayali.
However, the depiction of Kerala's cultures and Janhvi's flawed Malayalam became the target of social media jokes even before release. Once the film came to theatres and later on OTT, the trolls have only increased. Panicker, who plays a key role in Param Sundari, felt that the jokes have gone overboard.
Panicker, who has written some of Malayalam cinema's biggest blockbusters in the 1980s and 1990s, defended the Param Sundari team and their execution of the film's plot.
"They made the film with only the North Indian audience in mind. Not to satisfy the Malayali viewers," said Panicker in a chat with Dool News.
"Their only intention was to make a fun-filled film and it has come out exactly like that. All the jokes and trolls on the film are unwanted"
One of the most trolled scenes in Param Sundari actually features Panicker who is seen conversing with Janhvi in a sequence where he is seen repeating what the actress says initially in a gibberish accent. Netizens were of the view that Panicker was repeating Janhvi's lines only because she wasn't able to say the lines clearly.