A rural fable burdened by its subplots

When the earth beneath your feet becomes your last resort, even the most grounded men begin to slip.

- A SHARADHAA

This could well be the crux of Kothalavadi, a film that plants its feet firmly in the soil of the rural scape, where crop failures, debt cycles, and the illusion of power coalesce into a story of slow-burning moral collapse. Director Sri Raj, for the most part, succeeds in building this world — a space where survival overrides everything, even conscience.

Set in the fictional riverside village of Kothalavadi, nestled along the banks of the river Kaveri, the film opens with a conversation between two police officers — Parashuram (Rajesh Nataranga) and his superior (Avinash) — about this place that has become synonymous with quiet desperation. The villagers are drowning in debt, their lands mortgaged to a moneylender Lagori Kumara (Chethan Gandharva), who smiles with menace and lends with claws. With each failed harvest, hope recedes like the river during drought, leaving behind cracked fields and crushed spirits.

Into this fragile ecosystem enters Gujari Babu (Gopal Krishna Deshpande), a scrap trader who sells the villagers a dream disguised as revolution. He tells that the sand from their river belongs to them, not the government. With debts mounting and harvests disappointing year after year, the villagers — already beholden to Lagori Kumara — begin to see sand mining as salvation. And so begins the slow, collective slide into moral compromise.