The five best love movies in Tamil stand out in a crowd of objectification, depicting women only as sexual beings, invincible-ageless heroes, mindless item songs, and formula movie noise.
No navel fixations here, no hip-shaking choreography or super-sensitive heroines swooning at the slightest touch of the desperate heroes. Through the nineties, ace director and screenwriter Mani Ratnam almost singlehandedly redefined how love stories were told. Others followed. Here is the 9PM Movies list of the best Tamil romantic movies.
Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000): Jane Austen in TamilÂ
Until this movie, few Tamil directors, barring K. Balachander, Balu Mahendra and Mani Ratnam had celebrated the mystery and beauty of women, and shown their complex emotions.
Who would have thought that director Rajiv Menon’s adaptation of an 1811 Jane Austen novel Sense and Sensibility would make for an entertaining drama like Kandukondain Kandukondain (I have got it)? Add mesmerizing A.R. Rahman music to the mix, and the feel is that of a fairy tale musical.
Menon also pulls off a casting of a lifetime. The Kandukondain Kandukondain cast boasts of Aishwarya Rai and Tabu star as the two sisters. Malayalam actor Mammooty, Ajith Kumar and Abbas play the male leads. The main cast put in strong performances, and while the proceedings seem a bit stretched in the final act, Kandukondain Kandukondain is a well-made romance of its time.
Vaaranam Aayiram (2008): Like father, like sonÂ
Among the best Tamil movies to be made on the father-son bond and also one of the most realistic shades of onscreen love. Vaaranam Aayiram (A thousand elephants) is easily among Gautham Menon’s best movies. This one showed that Suriya was a star who could act amazingly well too. Harris Jayaraj peaks in an amazing soundtrack, probably his career best.
There are various dimensions to this tale. First is from the perspective of a loving father, the other is of a son and his painful, tormented coming-of-age.
Love is followed by a devastating loss, leading to depression and drug addiction, until the hero gets a chance to prove himself brave and capable, which became a kind of template for later Gautham Menon movies. Also, killing off a leading lady or putting her in great danger became an irritating story regularity with the director too.
Suirya is strong as the understanding father and the troubled son who is destined to find himself. Vaaranam Aayiram also features a strong performance by Simran.
Roja (1992): Sati-Savitri reimagined in KashmirÂ
Roja changed the love story forever in Tamil cinema. Yet, for years, nobody has been able to repeat the magic of what Ratnam achieved here. Nobody had handled love scenes with such sureness and balance, since then, but Ratnam himself.
Writer-director Mani Ratnam brings in the Kashmir conflict, builds a tense kidnapping thriller, gives us a heart stopping chase finale, and all this plays to a modern Sati-Savitri tale of undying loyalty and love. An easy choice for any Mani Ratnam top 10 movies list.
The fresh off the blocks Roja movie cast – Arvind Swami and Madhoo make great impact, and so does the great Pankaj Kapur. That Roja was A.R. Rahman’s stunning musical debut is another story for another blog. All the songs, but especially Chinna Chinna Aasai and later the Hindi version, Choti Si Aasha by Minmini took the country by storm.
Bombay (1995): Love knows no boundaries
Mani Ratnam went a step ahead from Roja by creating a lovely love story between a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl, decorated by yet another timeless A.R. Rahman soundtrack and the legendary Bombay movie BGM.
For its time, set against the backdrop of the 1992-1993 Bombay riots, the subject itself was a daring take. Prominent politicians who incited the riots were shown clearly in the movie, before the censors had their way.
Again, the director doesn’t use the usual formula for the love story. He adds a beautiful playfulness to the Arvind Swami-Manisha Koirala chemistry, making it feel very natural and real. Nowhere does it feel that the lovers are limited by religion. A Tamil love story that has been hard to match for years now.
’96 (2018): Love lost and found
Man meets woman at a school reunion and then wave after wave of memories keeps hitting them, in director-writer Premkumar Chandran’s simple, touching modern story ’96. Not many love stories in Tamil have traced middle-aged love birds in such loving intimacy.
Vijay Sethupathi and Trisha Krishnan make for an unexpected, lovely couple, powering this deep tale of love, sacrifice, and how circumstances can affect lives forever. Govind Vasantha’s music is a soothing background to the love journey.
Best love movies in Tamil: Afterword
Gautham Menon’s Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (2010) deserves special mention for the complex emotions explored in this Tamil love story. Sethu (1999), later remade as Tere Naam (2003) in Hindi, is a tragic tale of losing one’s mind in love. Mani Ratnam’s Alaipayuthey (2000) again redefined an almost linear, conventional love story with some surprising twists and turns.
How does your ‘best love movies in Tamil’ list look? Do share in the comments section.
