A glossy gift-wrapper doesn't always guarantee a worthwhile gift. So's the case with Kaadhalar Dhinam, where high-tech, foot-tapping music, gorgeous locales and beautiful cinematography can't make up for what is basically a love story with not much heart. With its grand scale, lavish song sequences and feeble romance, the movie it most reminded me of was Monisha En Monalisa and that is not a good comparison for any movie.

Ramachandra College in Bombay is the No. 1 in the country for management studies. Raja(Kunal), a poor boy from Tamil Nadu, gains admission there with help from the college chairman, Ramachandra (Nasser). He meets Roja(Sonali Bendre) in one of the chatroom on the internet and love blossoms. After they meet, a series of accidents prevents them from voicing their feelings for each other. And when Raja finally decides to tell Roja of his love, he learns that she is the daughter of Ramachandra. Ramachandra wants a rich lifestyle for his daughter and Raja, who owes everything to Ramachandra, decides to sacrifice his love.

The initial portions are charming with Raja and Roja chatting without knowing that they are on different floors of the same cybercafe. Considering what happens after they meet, you almost wish the director had spent more time developing this cyberlove further(like Kaadhal Kavidhai where the lovers don't meet for a majority of the movie). But the movie takes a downhill slide once they actually meet. The events that prevent them from confessing their love to each other are contrived and make the actions of the hero and heroine seem blatantly stupid(She lets his letter fly off without noticing it and when she writes him a letter in his notebook, he writes his address on the back of the same page, tears it off and gives it to his friend...!). There are a couple of nice touches like the sparks from the electric wires above the train when the hero and heroine touch each other but

these are few and far apart. The flashbacks of both Nasser and Kunal are too serious and seem jarringly out-of-place in an otherwise light romance.

The so-called comedy is unnecessary, irritating and worst of all, absurd. We have Koundamani, a professor in the No. 1 management college in the country, who doesn't know what a monitor or a mouse is and shares cigarettes with his students! And Chinni Jayanth, who looks ridiculously old, is supposed to be the hero's classmate! What is it about the college atmosphere that brings out the absolute worst in comedy in tamil films...? I for one, yearned for the crude but funny comedy of Oruvan.

Kunal is a total misfit for the role. He doesn't look like a poor boy from a TN village, can't act or dance and looks more like Sonali's younger brother. Sonali looks pretty but there's absolutely no chemistry between her and Kunal. We never become involved with the characters and never start to care about them and that is not a good thing in a love story. Nasser does what he can with the sad role of a college chairman who spends most of his time helping one of the students' love affair...!

Photography by P.C.Sriram is outstanding but he doesn't have a lot of work other than in the song sequences. Rehman comes up with a winner in O Maria (Rambha appears in this single song sequence following the tradition of Roja in Nenjinile and Kaadhal Kavidhai and Simran in Edhirum Pudhirum and Andhappuram.) but all other songs remind you of an old song at one point or the other.

Kaadhalar Dhinam Movie Review...!!

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