Engaeyum Eppothum

M. Saravanan's 2011 Tamil film opens with two buses colliding. It then goes back to show how four passengers came to be on them. Amudha is a village girl visiting Chennai for the first time and Gautham the stranger who shows her the city; Kathiresan is a metal worker and Manimegalai a nurse. Two love stories run in parallel and the audience knows the ending from the start. That knowledge produces all the tension: even an ordinary scene of two people meeting grows heavy because of where it is going. The film also works on class; the two couples come from different social positions and their relationships with the city differ accordingly. Anjali's performance drew particular attention. The crash is shown again at the end, this time with its context. Who it's for: those who like romantic drama with parallel narratives in Tamil cinema. Who it's not for: viewers troubled by road accidents and deaths on screen; the film shows this at the opening and again at the close.