MANMADHA LEELAI

Cert 12A

105 mins

BBFC advice: Contains moderate violence, sex references, domestic abuse, mouthed strong language

A surprise candidate for Indian film of the year? Yes, that is how highly I rated Venkat Prabhu's Manmadha Leelai.

But even though it is less than two hours long, it needs a bit of patience before hitting its stride, and ultimately, arriving at a dazzling denouement.

Prabhu's movie runs two parallel storylines, separated by ten years. 

Their common focus is Sathya, a womaniser who is played by Ashok Selvan.

In the first, he is a student who has the hots for a girl (Samyuktha Hegde) with whom he has struck up an internet friendship.

She is prim and proper and lives with her father but Sathya is desperate to meet and even get down and dirty.

The complementary plot sees Selvan's character 

as a successful married businessman whose wife (Smruthi Venkat) has gone away for a couple of days.

As he sits alone working, there is a knock at the door from a dazzlingly attractive young woman (Riya Suman) who says she has mistaken his house for one where she is due to attend a party.

Initially, he appears reticent to fall for her full-on flirting but this is a guy who is led by lust.

Both stories have plenty of surprises, keeping the audience on tenterhooks but for most of the film I was wondering how they linked together.

It turns out there is an ingenious finale which made the wait entirely worthwhile.

Selvan, Hegde and Suman all play great parts in making Manmadha Leelai be such a memorable movie but I would also give a shout out to Prabhu for smart direction and Manivannan for devilishly good writing.