A Peck on the Cheek (கன்னத்தில் முத்தமிட்டால் — Kannathil Muthamittal) is a 2002 Tamil language Indian drama film directed by Mani Ratnam, based on the short story "Amuthavum Avanum" written by "Sujatha" S. Rangarajan.
The film opens in 1991 with the marriage of M. D. Shyama (Nandita Das) and Dileepan (Chakravarty), two Sri Lankan Tamils. Their newlywed happiness is cut short by the Sri Lankan Civil War, as Dileepan is a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE); a pregnant Shyama is forced to leave her husband behind as she and many other Tamils make a dangerous boat trip to India. In a refugee camp in the town of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, Shyama goes into labor — and the story then cuts to 9 years later to follow her daughter Amudha (P. S. Keerthana), who has been adopted by an Indian family.
Though Amudha lives a happy life with her writer father Thiruchelvan (R. Madhavan) and news anchor mother Indira (Simran), her adoptive parents reluctantly decide to tell her about her true background on her 9th birthday. Torn between the shock of finding out she's adopted and the love her adoptive family show her, Amudha eventually convinces Thiruchelvan and Indira to take her on a trip to Sri Lanka in search of her birth mother. This is easier said than done, as the war that separated Amudha from her parents is still raging....
Tropes:
- Adoption Angst: Amudha is rather distraught to hear that she was adopted. Being just 9, she has major trouble trying to comprehend how her adoptive parents still love her despite not being related by blood. The fact that her father told her the truth on her birthday made it especially upsetting. It doesn't help that she also finds out her birth mother is still out there somewhere.
- Bittersweet Ending: Amudha and her adoptive family finally locate Shyama after all sorts of false leads and near misses with death amidst the fighting. But Shyama, between her duties caring for war orphans and all the years of Amudha's life she missed, decides that she doesn't have the right or the capability to take her daughter back. She contents herself with receiving a photo album of Amudha from the latter's life up to that point and says farewell to her daughter's new family as they return to India.
- Catchphrase: Harold Wickramasinghe has "No problem" (said in English).
- Child Soldiers: Amudha runs into a group of girls barely older than her brandishing assault rifles when she wanders into the woods alone. They let her run off in fright.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: In the prologue, Shyama tells Dileepan that she wants to have 8 kids. Dileepan responds that he doesn't want any kids — not until the war is over and Sri Lanka is a safer place for children. Considering the war wouldn't actually end until nearly 20 years after that scene, Dileepan would've made his wife wait a very long time if he hadn't gotten killed. In the story's present day, Shyama more or less gets her wish by taking care of hundreds of war orphans.
- Oblivious Adoption: Amudha had no idea she was adopted until her 9th birthday. Indira had even said that she and Amudha looked very alike despite Amudha having noticeably darker skin than her adoptive family. Amudha's maternal grandfather, D. Ganesan, asks why she was told at all given how upset she was to find out; when told that she needed to know eventually, Ganesan sarcastically and bitterly suggests that they should have waited until her 80th birthday.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Indira gets shot through the right arm in the crossfire between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers. Yet despite screaming out and falling over in pain when it happens, the following scenes show that she can still move that arm surprisingly well. This is despite getting the wound treated by a Catholic priest (in a damaged church where he is tending to various other civilian casualties) who realistically wouldn't have the skills or resources to heal such a wound that well that quickly.
- Significant Name Overlap: Two examples:
- When Thiruchelvan was beginning his writing career, he chose "Indira" as a Pen Name. Despite this being a fairly generic name in India, his neighbor Indira was convinced that he took the name from her, to the point of biking up to him while he was riding his moped and demanding royalties. This was one of the incidents that resulted in the two getting married, after which she presumably dropped the subject.
- The family searches for Amudha's mother knowing only that her name is Shyama and that she lives in a village called Mankulam. They do indeed find a woman named Shyama, but it's not Amudha's mother (which the audience can figure out quickly because she's played by a different actress). This other Shyama, upon being told by Amudha's oblivious adoptive parents that she's her daughter, admits that Amudha would be the right age to be her daughter — if said daughter weren't buried in town alongside her other siblings. In a particularly unlucky double coincidence, it turns out there's also more than one town called Mankulam in the vicinity.
- War Is Hell: The Sri Lankan Civil War is primarily portrayed through its traumatic effects on civilians. Amudha was given up for adoption as a baby because of the war, and 9 years later we still see multiple situations where people have to be evacuated from their villages before the shooting and bombing starts.
