Sree Dhanya Catering Service follows the story of a group of men who decide to prepare Biryani until things go south. The story is a hilarious situational comedy with a few layers tapped into the patriarchy that is prevalent in our society. The screenplay standing at just under a 100 minutes did feel slightly stretched given the source material at hand.

The drama opens with the introduction of a character that seems to be a leader only for an extended animation piece to roll that does give you an impression about his personality. Soon you are introduced to a bunch of other characters including a few of the main players that definitely does promise a dish filled with chaos.

There are hidden subtexts about the male ego and the patriarchy that is prevalent in our society much like in The Great Indian Kitchen. For instance, a character in the film does not allow his wife to go anywhere or even dress up as per her wish(an additional hidden subtext of the wife telling her daughter to put on an extra piece of clothing in a separate scene) until one day he sends her off only to invite his bunch of friends for a night of booze and cooking. The drama here is subtly hilarious and quite enjoyable.

One drawback that I did find was that there were so many subplots and not all of them were well tied together to the main plot. For instance, the character of the leader was barely there in the film and he returned only towards the end. If the focus was just on the main plot then the impact may have been even higher! This perhaps may have been done because the writing material was thin and perhaps the drama may havw worked better as a short film.

But there is so much to like in the screenplay especially when the actual fun of cooking begins. There are new characters that keep popping in that only leads to further chaos. As they say, too many cooks spoil the broth! In a hilarious sequence, there are two characters who are are arguing as to how to prepare a Kozhikode biryani or a Kottayam biryani. This when one of them retorts – Is there is law on how to prepare the “right” kind of Biryani. This had me in absolute splits. The events leading up to the final act are equally hilarious when finally it is the women who come to their rescue. As they say, never trust a man with a task….always double check🤣. So overall, the screenplay is hilarious and enjoyable although it does run thin at times.