Vaanam Kottattum HD Released

Vaanam Kottatum begins with an act of rage. Angered at the attempt over the life of his brother (Balaji Sakthivel), Bose Kaalai (Sarath Kumar) commits murder and ends up in prison. His wife, Chandra (Radikaa), wants her children to be away from a life of violence and relocates to Chennai. Over the years, the family begins to pick up the broken pieces. The son, Selva (Vikram Prabhu) becomes a small-time businessman. The daughter, Mangai (Aishwarya Rajesh), is studying law and also helps put with her brother's business. And 16 years later, Bose returns. Will he be welcomed into the fold? And his return also brings back a ghost from their past in the form of Baskaran (Nandaa), the revenge-hungry son of the man who Bose murdered.

Vaanam Kottatum is what you would get if a relationship drama with an ensemble cast, like Namma Veettu Pillai or Kadaikutty Singam, gets the Mani Ratnam treatment. While this film is directed by his former associate Dhana, it also bears the stamp of Mani Ratnam (he is the co-writer and producer of the film), be it in the understated manner in which the melodrama is handled or in the visual flourishes or in the impish nature of the romantic tracks. One of them involves Selva and Preetha (Madonna Sebastian), a rich woman who is also facing issues because of an absent father. You could very well go ahead and call this film Mani Ratnam lite.

But this isn't taking away the credit from Dhana, whose filmmaking is much assured here than in his debut, Padaiveeran. He extracts endearing performances from his cast, and watching this ensemble of actors, all of whom bring their A game to the table, is one of the chief pleasures that this film offers. If Sarath Kumar and Radikaa light up the screen with their chemistry (the fact that they are also a couple in real life makes us instantly buy into the kind of relationship that they share here), the camaraderie between Vikram Prabhu and Aishwarya Rajesh (whose performance here is tonally far removed from how she played the sister in Namma Veettu Pillai) is a delight to watch. Without making any grand statements, this brother-sister relationship becomes endearing.

While the characters that Dhana and Mani Ratnam have created are certainly interesting, the plotting isn't as effective. Even if there are no dull moments, the leisurely pacing does make the film feel longer than its slightly over two-hour duration. And the sub-plot involving Baskaran is conveniently resolved, making those portions underwhelming.