Tag: R Madhavan

Kick Start Your Valentine’s Week with 5 Most Romantic Tamil Films of All Time

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Has the post-Covid world put a dampener on your Valentine’s Week this year? While we were stuck at home since March last year, movies and shows have been a good escape from the chaos around the world. Continuing with the same thought, we thought it might be a good idea to stay at home and watch some of the most romantic regional movies this week to celebrate with your partner.

We’re starting with the most romantic Tamil movies of all time. This one’s an easy list to make – four out of five of these have AR Rahman’s music. You’ll surely find your favourite love story and song here.

Roja (1992)

Since it’s Rose Day, Roja has to be on the top of my list. While this Mani Ratnam film is known for dealing with patriotism and national security, it’s a love story at the core. A city-bred man marries an innocent village woman after being rejected by her sister. While he falls in love with her, she keeps him at an arms’ distance thinking she has taken her sister’s place. His gentle manners and dedication towards her eventually wins her heart. The period of their separation is a painful part to watch, as she runs from pillar to post to free her husband from the hostage situation. AR Rahman, debuting as a composer and winning a National Award, gave us some of the most romantic songs of all time.

Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000)

This film brought together big names like Mammootty, Ajith Kumar, Tabu, Aishwarya Rai and Abbas. In this Bollywood rendition of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility, two daughters Sowmya (Tabu) and Meenakshi (Aishwarya Rai) of a single woman struggle to find the right man. Their lives go through an upheaval after they lose their country estate. Sowmya is branded “unlucky” after her fiancé decides to commit suicide. Meenakshi appears to find love in the form of a poetry-loving businessman. Still, many hurdles remain as both girls struggle to keep the family’s finances in order. The film also offered some breathtaking locations, including the filming of the title song in Scotland with the castle of Eilean Donan as a backdrop. Enna Solla Pogirai was shot in the deserts of Egypt, with the pyramids of Giza featuring in it.

Alai Payuthey (2000)

You cannot make a romantic Tamil movies list and not include films of R Madhavan. This film is another example of the musical genius of AR Rahman, which went a long way in making this movie a hit. The story was a departure from the melodramatic love stories of the 90s, showing the ups and downs in the relationship of a modern-day couple. They choose to go against parental opposition to marry, and find out differences between them while living together. The lead pair goes through a whole gamut of emotions, from flirtation, wooing, emotional attachment, arguments, separation, and eventually, fear of losing your partner forever.

Minnale (2001)

R Madhavan followed the success of Alai Payuthey with Minnale, another romantic film which was remade in Hindi. His character falls in love with a woman after seeing her dancing in the rain one day – it doesn’t get more romantic than this. But the woman is already supposed to get engaged to someone she hasn’t met in years. The love-struck man steals the identity of his former college foe to pursue his lady love. He has to face repercussions eventually when his cover is blown, but the romantic moments they spend together stays with you, and love wins finally at the end. This film’s music too was a chartbuster, especially the song Vaseegara continues to be popular among today’s generation.

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (2010)

Another romantic film by Gautham Menon after Minnale, with music by AR Rahman, Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa had all the right elements to make it a hit. Starring Silambarasan and Trisha, Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa explores the complicated relationship between a Hindu Tamil boy, Karthik Sivakumar, and a Malayali Christian girl, Jessie Thekekuttu from Alappuzha, Kerala. Karthik falls in love with Jessie only to be met by her indifference and reluctance as they belong to different religions and her strict conservative family will never consent to their union. The moment Karthik meets her under her house, leaning over its white gate, has since become an iconic boy-meets-girl scene.



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Maara Movie Review: R Madhavan and Shraddha Srinath Dazzle in This Remake

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Maara

Director: Dhilip Kumar

Cast: R. Madhavan, Shraddha Srinath, Mouli, Padmavati Rao, Ssvidha

Maara (in Tamil) reminded me of a fable, a fairy tale, even a nonsense rhyme with a wide-eyed young woman going in search of a mystery man. Her travels take her to a variety of places – mostly in coastal Kerala – and to a myriad group of people who had all met him and experienced his warmth. Every story they have had to say gets her more and more curious, and her urge to meet him gets stronger. And, all the more so, because he seems such a good soul.

The woman is Paru (played by Shraddha Srinath with enormous feeling and such expressive eyes that it is a pleasure to watch her), and the man is Manimaran or Maara (a wonderful performance by R. Madhavan), the title character. Directed by Dhilip Kumar from the 2015 Malayalam movie, Charlie (with Dulquer Salman and Parvathy Thiruvothu), Maara begins rather innocuously on a bus journey with a very young Paru demanding a story from her grandmother. And the kid is not happy with whatever the elderly woman comes up with, till a co-passenger soothes Paru with the story of a soldier and how his soul lay inside a fish, which would rejoice every time it heard the sound of a conch, because it knew that he was safely back home after a battle.

Many, many years later, Paru unwilling to be tied down in marriage runs away from home on the pretext of an office assignment, and lands in Kerala where she is startled to find giant size paintings on every wall, and some of them tell the same tale that the woman on the bus had told her many moons ago. She learns that the painter is a man named Maara, but to catch him would be like trying to pin a cloud down ( am quoting the lyrics from a song in The Sound of Music). But when she by a stroke of luck finds accommodation in Maara’s empty home, a sprawling place filled with images and sculptures, she decides that she must somehow find him.

Her search leads her to many corners of the region and finally end in a home run by Vellaiya (Mouli). It has an assorted group, including a young doctor, Kani (Sshivda), whom Maara had saved from committing suicide. She had botched up her first surgery, and a 10-year-old child went. There is also a girl named Rani in the home, and Maara had saved her from the clutches of a child molester. Paru decides to stay on there, hoping to catch Maara, and the magical meeting happens right at the end, which also presents a surprising climax. Some may see it coming.

Kumar leaves his own stamp on the film, and while the hero in Charlie is an enigma, Maara is less so, maybe a ploy to make viewers feel good. It is also amazing how the movie uses a fish to connect Maara and Paru as well as Vellaiya and his long, lost love. A truly charismatic Madhavan and an unforgettable Srinath make Maara a great watch.

However, I would have preferred a longer screen time for Maara and Paru, which is quite short, because the film takes a while to weave into their relationship. The end may seem somewhat abrupt, even unconvincing, and there is this question that haunts me. We know that Paru is a nostalgic art restorer, but could that have been the lone reason for her to try so hard to find the man called Maara?

Despite these hiccups, Maara is certainly worth a watch.

Rating: 3/5

(Gautaman Bhaskaran is a movie critic and author of a biography of Adoor Gopalakrishnan)

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