Aanandham

Aanandham (English: Happiness) is a 2001 Tamil language family-drama film directed by N. Linguswamy and produced by R. B. Choudary. The film features an ensemble cast starring Mammootty alongside Murali, Abbas, Devayani, Rambha, Sneha, Delhi Ganesh and Srividya. Arthur A. Wilson handled cinematography, while S. A. Rajkumar composed the film's score and soundtrack. The film opened in May 2001 to positive reviews and commercial success, prompting remakes in other Indian regional languages.^[1][2]

Plot

Tirupati (Mammootty) owns a provisional store and is the eldest among four brothers and all live together in a home along with their parents Delhi Ganesh and Sri Vidya. Tirupati is widely respected by everyone in the family and was responsible for bringing back their family to a good state after financial troubles a few years back. Tirupati gets married to Bharathi (Devayani) who is a lot more responsible and kind to everyone. Madhavan (Murali) is the second son in the family who assists Tirupati in managing their provisional store. He is innocent and gets married to Renuka (Rambha), relative of him but she is short tempered and picks up quarrel often. Kannan (Abbas) is the third son in the family and he goes to college where he falls for his classmate Viji (Sneha). Viji is the only daughter of a rich arrogant man (Vijayakumar). Surya (Shyam Ganesh) is the youngest son and studies in college.

Renuka feels that only Tirupati is respected by everyone and not her husband Madhavan because Tirupati manages the provisional store while Madhavan just assists him. She keeps insisting Madhavan to start a separate provisional store which he does not accept as that would separate him from his brothers. Vijayakumar gets to know about the love of his daughter Viji with Kannan and warns him to forget her. Kannan gets a job and leaves to Delhi as he does not want to marry Viji against Vijayakumar’s wishes.

One day Renuka begins a quarrel at home saying that Tirupati has a separate savings account in bank and takes money from common account without the knowledge of other family members. Tirupati feels bad hearing this. Suddenly Renuka and Madhavan’s daughter faints and is rushed to hospital. It is revealed that the child was suffering from a serious disease which only Tirupati knew before and he was saving money to meet out the medical expenses without informing others as others will worry if they get to know about the child’s disease. Renuka realizes her mistake knowing this and apologizes to Tirupati for her harsh behaviour towards him and Bharathi. Later they start an own rice mill. Tirupati gets to know about Kannan’s love towards Viji and he goes to meet Vijiayakumar with a marriage proposal. Vijayakumar agrees for wedding but on a condition that Kannan should stay along with his daughter in his home only as he does not want to send his daughter to another home after wedding. Tirupati agrees to the condition but does not inform this to Kannan as he will not agree for this. On the day of marriage, Kannan gets to know about the condition of him to stay in Vijayakumar’s home and cancels the wedding and comes back to his home to meet his family members. Following him Viji also comes asking him to marry her against her father’s wishes.

But Tirupati convinces the couple saying that if the two get married without Vijayakumar’s permission then it will be a big blow to Vijayakumar's status in the society and we should not be the reason behind that. He also convinces Viji to leave to her home immediately before anyone could come to know about this. When they step out of the home, they see Vijayakumar with a group of men to attack Tirupati’s family. But he has overheard Tirupati’s conversation with Viji and realizes his good nature and agrees for their wedding. Finally Kannan and Viji get married happily and Viji lives along with everyone in a joint family in Tirupati’s home.

Cast

• Mammootty as Thirupathisamy
• Murali as Madhavan
• Abbas as Kannan
• Devayani as Bharathi
• Rambha as Renuka Madhavan
• Sneha as Viji
• Poonam
• Shyam Ganesh as Surya
• Delhi Ganesh
• Srividya
• Vijayakumar
• Sashikumar Subramani as Renuka's brother

Production

The director Linguswamy revealed that the film was inspired by moments in his life and through a series of incidents his mother had narrated to him. Thus when director Rajakumaran convinced R. B. Choudary to give Linguswamy an opportunity, he narrated the stories and he found the producer had found them highly appealing.^[3] The director had previously assisted Vikraman in Vaanathaippola, another family drama on brothers. Linguswamy originally wanted to title the project, Thirupathi Brothers, which he later went on to name his production house.^[4] Another early working title for the film was Thamirabharani.^[5]

Ramya Krishnan was initially signed on to play heroine but Mammooty cast his doubts over her involvement after the pair had fallen out on the sets of a previous Malayalam film, and she was subsequently replaced by Soundarya. Devayani was initially supposed to feature as Murali's pair in the film, but after Soundarya opted out, she was given the senior actress role of Mammooty's pair.^[6] Shooting was held at locations in Chennai, Ooty and Mettupalayam among other places.^[7]

Release

Aanandham opened to positive reviews in May 2001, with a critic noting that "it is a promising work from the debutant director".^[8][9] The film went on to win the Filmfare Award for Best Tamil Films in the 2002 ceremony as well as being honoured as the Best Tamil Film at the Cinema Express Awards.^[10][11] Aanandham also received two awards from the Tamil Nadu State, winning third best film and Best Actress for Sneha, who was recognized for this film alongside her work in Virumbugiren and Punnagai Desam.^[12] Newspaper, The Hindu also listed the film amongst the best of 2001.^[13]

Producer R. B. Choudary launched another film titled Samudhiram on family bonding soon after this film's release, with the new film featuring Sarathkumar, Murali and Manoj as brothers. A Telugu remake was released in 2005 as Sankranthi by Muppalaneni Shiva, starring Venkatesh, Srikanth, Sharwanand, Sneha and Arti Agarwal in lead roles.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film was composed by S. A. Rajkumar, was well received by the audience.

References

External links

• Aanandham at the Internet Movie Database