A refreshing midpoint that made Madhavan hughly popular

Mani Ratnam's timeless romance Alaipayuthey turns 25, marking R. Madhavan's film debut with a captivating love story.

The summer of 2000 offered a celluloid high for Tamil cinephiles. On April 14, Mani Ratnam’s Alaipayuthey was released and the movie turned 25 recently. This was the ace director’s latest take on the changing dynamics of romance and it also marked a film debut for R. Madhavan, who, along with Shalini, struck an emotional chord with the fans.

Mani Ratnam’s movies are not usually about the happily-ever-after, a trope that forms the climax of most films in the romantic genre. He dices up a marriage and looks at the stress-points, and be it Mouna Ragam in 1986 or Alaipayuthey, the maestro holds a mirror that is contemporary to those times and yet the perspective remains timeless.

The prelude to Alaipayuthey was the cracker of a music album that A.R. Rahman orchestrated and released early. The numbers ranging from Snehithane to Pachai nirame were from the top-drawer, while youngsters took a shine to Endrendrum punnagai. Even if CDs were available, the cassettes featuring an image of the lead-pair wrapped in a yellow blanket were high on aesthetics and hinted at their high-octane chemistry.

The story, told in a series of flashbacks while a husband goes in search of his lost wife, segues into how they fell in love and got married. Two families markedly different in social status and the ensuing friction caused by the eloping pair are narrated with nuance. If euphemisms can sheath a dagger, some of the dialogues in the build-up to the marriage are classic examples.

Casting against type comes naturally to Mani Ratnam and he fields Vivek in a serious role of a man, who is supposed to marry Shalini. There were lovely cameos by Arvind Swamy and Khushbu, and a Malayali landlord offers some philosophy to Madhavan in a home that is yet to be plastered while the exposed bricks lent some rustic charm.

Even if the city by then had become Chennai, the indefinite allure of Madras was evident through the film as suburban trains are part of the atmosphere and also served as a base for a heart-tugging story. Old housing board flats, relatively modern apartments, and under-construction tenements were all beautifully filmed by P.C. Sreeram.

When the hero goes to Kerala seeking out his beloved, the monsoon seemingly drenches the audience too. Such was Sreeram’s mastery of his craft. Years later, Mani Ratnam again dived headlong into romance with O Kadhal Kanmani in 2015 and it dealt with a live-in relationship. Between Mouna Ragam and O Kadhal Kanmani, Alaipayuthey was that refreshing midpoint and it made Madhavan extremely popular.