Yeto Vellipoyindhi Manasu

The on again-off again romance between two childhood sweethearts right into their twenties is possibly not something new but the difference is the treatment given to it by director Gautham Menon. Had it not been for him it would have been a very mediocre movie.

Gautham Menon brings to it the balance (no loud melodrama) and middle class touch (no trips to fantasia- land with strangely and 'minimalistically' clad extras) that is rather rare. The little touches - an old ten rupee note, the school uniforms with the long skirts etc. - were well thought out. Refreshing to see an eye for detail.

Credit to the cast, especially Nani and Samantha, for putting themselves in his hands because the story spans a decade or so and these two actors portray the teen as well as the adult parts with great conviction. Very, very few actors could have carried these two phases so convincingly.

'Maestro' Ilaiyaraja's music is, well, nice but the music does not 'stick' that is to say it is not the type that one can hum through the day quite happily. One would not be remiss in believing that the movie, in the first fifteen minutes, was actually a musical. No one is complaining but the hopes were high.

Competent supporting cast, believeable. The movie is not for kids or the 'unromantic' at heart. The experience could have been better if the length had been chopped off by about 15 minutes.

There was article in the papers recently about the scarcity of directors in our industry. And with the draught happening, somebody like Gautham Menon will be a valued asset, even if he's making the same film over and over.

Varun and Nithya go through life (starting when they were 8) breaking up, patching up, breaking up and a happy ending. I'm not being brief about the plot, may be throw in another break up and patch up in there and that's it.

One of the better ideas Menon came up with a while ago was the 'passing of time' element which local cinema only uses for 20 years or more (for the boy to become a killing machine, physically).

His films always stressed the 'life moves on' factor, all the more in this one. This couple meet when they were kids, years later in school again, some gap, college, again once Nithya becomes the Woman Menon wrote about in English and at the climax.

The film also stressed its experimental long takes which seemed stressed because neither the content nor the acting was good enough to make an uncut scene interesting. And the camera's random sense of floating around doesn't help either.

On the bright side, there was The Maestro's music which mostly served as a montage than duet material. Humour was occasionally spontaneous, but, hearing to the actors struggle with Telugu pronunciation, it never hooks you up.

If love is all you live for, the Menon style, this one's just for you.

its a very good movie that happends to me samantha acting is soooooo good he is another soundarya conform nani acting in climax is good&direction; is good in some senes before interval are bore &after; interval the film is soo good