The Param Sundari Trailer Makes You Want To Believe in Love Again

Well… the Bollywood rom-com is officially having its second wind.

After years of making way for action spectacles and mythological epics, the genre that once gave us SRK’s open-armed declarations and candyfloss love stories is back on the big screen, especially after the recent raving success of Saiyaara.

And now, alas, we have Param Sundari, a film that’s wearing its candy-coloured heart on its sleeve.

It’s a simple setup with classic Bollywood beats: a Punjabi boy meets a South Indian girl in Kerala, sparks fly, cultures clash, families glare, and somewhere in between, there’s a dramatic monologue, a chartbuster song, and the possibility of love winning in the end. The trailer clocks in at two minutes and forty seconds, and in that time it packs in flirty church banter, Kerala backwaters bathed in golden light, SRK-Rajinikanth name drops, and beautiful, sensual music video visuals.

This is literally proof that the industry is ready to flirt with unabashed romance again.

The Story, as the Trailer Tells It

Sidharth Malhotra plays Param, a “Dilli ka munda”. He’s in Kerala for reasons the trailer doesn’t quite reveal — but what it does show is his meet-cute with Sundari (Janhvi Kapoor), a woman whose patience for entitled North Indian men hovers somewhere around zero. What starts as cheeky banter — Bollywood versus Southern cinema references flying back and forth — quickly turns into something more tender, until the usual obstacles arrive.

There’s the family disapproval, the cross-cultural misunderstandings, and, in what might be the film’s most meme-able moment, Sundari delivering a razor-sharp monologue schooling Param and his friend on the difference between Mohanlal, Rajinikanth, Allu Arjun, and Yash. (“Tumhare liye har South Indian Madras? Bloody North Indians! Illiterate, arrogant, ignorant, entitled! Traitors!”) The internet’s already clipped and circulated it, with South Indian fans calling it “the scene we’ve been waiting to say ourselves.”

The rom-com recipe is tried and tested in Chennai Express (2013) and 2 States (2014), but here, it’s still giving us fresh oxygen.

Sachin–Jigar’s compositions, with lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya, are already making their rounds on playlists. “Pardesiya” has been the film’s calling card since its first drop — upbeat, colourful, and shamelessly catchy. The follow-up, Adnan Sami and Shreya Ghoshal’s “Bheegi Saree”, taps into the monsoon-romance vibe, giving Janhvi one of those slow-motion, drenched-in-silk moments Bollywood has historically reserved for its heroines.

Why This Could Work

Rom-coms have never been about plot twists — they’ve been about charm, chemistry, and the ability to make you believe in love for 120 minutes. On that front, Param Sundari might just be aiming for the sweet spot. Sidharth brings the easy Delhi-boy charisma he’s been trying to sharpen since Shershaah, while Janhvi, coming off a South debut in Devara, looks more grounded than ever. Her emotional beats in the trailer — especially that monologue — show she’s leaning into the cultural specificity instead of playing it safe.

Director Tushar Jalota has called the story as a “celebration of differences,” and while that’s the kind of press-note optimism you’d expect, it’s also the right energy for a genre that thrives on opposites attracting.

If Saiyaara cracked open the door for Bollywood rom-coms in 2025, Param Sundari is hoping to waltz right through it. It’s glossy, it’s self-aware, and it’s not afraid to poke fun at cultural stereotypes while leaning into them.

The movie releases in theatres on August 29.