Vaanam Vasappadum

Plot

Karthik, a young lawyer falls in love with Poongothai, daughter of a businessman Vijayakumar. Vijayakumar and Poongothai's sister run a Multi-level marketing and are imprisoned for false accusations. Karthik brings Poongothai to his parents and seeks the permission from them – Nasser, a speech impaired person and Revathy, his mother. Karthik and Poongothai eventually get married after his parents consent.

One day while travelling back home, their car breaks down and they decide to board a bus. But both of them miss each other while travelling in the bus and Poongothai falls in the hands of a group of teenagers, who are projected as womanizers. In the event, Poongothai is raped by the group and is thrown out with her hands tied at the back. After the event, issues of how she faces the humiliation and gets justice for the act form the rest of the story.

Cast

Production

The film was based on a novel by Sujatha, which in turn was inspired from a real-life incident. After having read the story before 10 years the film got released, Sreeram had a thought of directing it and "reserved" his rights for filming it in future. The film was initially launched with newcomers Gautham and Pooja, a former Miss Chennai announced as the lead pair. However, Sreeram replaced the pair with another pair of debutants Karthik Kumar and Poongothai Chandrahasan. Vaanam Vasappadum was Sreeram's third film as director and was the first motion picture in India to use high-definition digital technology. The film was showcased at the Mumbai International Film Festival and the ninth International Film Festival of Kerala in India. The film's soundtrack and background score were composed by Mahesh Mahadevan, who earlier worked with Sreeram in Kuruthipunal and it was his posthumous project before his death. The lyrics were written by Kavivarman and Jayendra, while Kasi Viswanathan handled the editing department.

Reception

The film was released theatrically in India in April 2004. Poongothai, the female lead was criticised heavily while Karthik Kumar, the male lead received rave reviews for his performance in the film. Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu wrote, "[Poongothai] is a clear let down ... At least she could have worked on her expressions, particularly in the first half." The review also noted that, the screenplay was not so impressive and could have made the original story more insightful. However, the soundtrack received positive response with the song "Uyirae" being much appreciated for its music and visual theme. Baradwaj Rangan wrote for The Economic Times, "Somewhere down the line, Vaanam Vasappadum becomes a case of several powerful moments that don’t quite add up to a singularly powerful movie." After six months, digital colour correction was added which further improved the visual quality of the picture and the film was re-released in November 2004.