With Love review: Cute romance with interesting ideas, marred by flat screenplay
With Love movie review: Directed by Madhan, With Love is a romantic drama featuring Abishan Jeevinth and Anaswara Rajan. The cute love story is packed with interesting ideas, but marred by a flat screenplay.
Rom-coms and romantic dramas in the 2020s seem to be undergoing a progressive shift. Films like Aaromaley and Ithiri Neram have offered fresh perspectives, given women agency in relationships, and shared balanced yet sensible takes. The latest romantic drama to join this list is director Madhan's With Love, which brings together Abishan Jeevinth and Anaswara Rajan in lead roles. Did the film make people fall in love with it? Let's find out!
Sathya Seelan (Abishan Jeevinth) is a smart youngster, an insecure one at that, who is longing for a meaningful relationship. His broken relationship with his father is always off-topic for him, but it is his sister (Anandhi) who nudges him to move on in his personal life. She sets him up with his school junior Monisha (Anaswara Rajan) for a coffee date, where the two share stories, discover their common links, and decide whether to date.
Sathya and Monisha discover that they have unrequited love in their lives and decide to find their school crushes to express their emotions. And in the process of doing so, they discover whether they are compatible and attracted enough to take the relationship forward. At two hours and 21 minutes, With Love aims to tell a warm romantic story through today's lens.
Director Madhan's With Love takes its sweet time to capture your attention. The initial portions begin with Abishan Jeevinth living his role (as Sathyan) with honesty. However, the director-turned-actor's performance takes a while to find its rhythm. Once he settles into it and makes Sathya the boy-next-door, the story pulls you in. The school flashback portions expose Abishan's inexperience as an actor, but he impresses in the present-day portions by portraying vulnerability, fear, and shyness in approaching a woman.
It is Anaswara Rajan who charms us all with her cute expressions and, more importantly, executes comedy. Her little expressions, sparks of ruggedness of a backbencher, and the love in her eyes make Monisha one of the most likeable characters. With Love takes us through a nostalgic ride to school days when glances meant love, FLAMES were affirmations, and holding hands meant forever. It also sheds light on how bullying, introversion, and insecurities change and shape a person.
With Love is a mixed bag - while it features some interesting ideas, it doesn't come together as a whole. Abishan's Sathyan has an emotional outburst about his love life with his sister, but the emotion doesn't carry through. The reason behind this disconnect is the film never establishes the relationship between the brother and sister beyond a handful of video calls. We get dialogues about Sathyan's broken relationship with his father, but the story doesn't go beyond that. The film would have benefitted from showing their bond rather than just telling us about it.
Sathyan, as an adult, is labelled endangered green forest by Anaswara. However, his character exhibits red flag behaviour like checking his partner's phones and brushing aside his flaws during confrontation. But, this aspect is hardly explored, because Monisha is all about overlooking his flaws as they're harmless for her.
Anaswara's school love story is cute, but when she meets her crush as an adult, the transition feels unconvincing. Despite the shortcomings, Anaswara's performance makes it work. It's also interesting to see a woman going after what she wants. After Abishan and Anaswara, Kavya Anil's Esther lights up the screen and takes us back to school days.
With Love finds its footing when the two leads figure each other out, confront past regrets, and arrive at a compatible state in their relationship. Shreyaas Krishna's visuals scream freshness. They're warm, colourful, and youthful. Sean Roldan's songs and background music also help the film remain refreshing. But the incorporation of the classic Aval Varuvala song from Nerrukku Ner as a mere tool to evoke applause didn't land.
With Love scores big in interconnecting the stories of Abishan and Anaswara well, but it lacks the cohesiveness to emerge as a fully satisfying romantic drama.
Rom-coms and romantic dramas in the 2020s seem to be undergoing a progressive shift. Films like Aaromaley and Ithiri Neram have offered fresh perspectives, given women agency in relationships, and shared balanced yet sensible takes. The latest romantic drama to join this list is director Madhan's With Love, which brings together Abishan Jeevinth and Anaswara Rajan in lead roles. Did the film make people fall in love with it? Let's find out!
Sathya Seelan (Abishan Jeevinth) is a smart youngster, an insecure one at that, who is longing for a meaningful relationship. His broken relationship with his father is always off-topic for him, but it is his sister (Anandhi) who nudges him to move on in his personal life. She sets him up with his school junior Monisha (Anaswara Rajan) for a coffee date, where the two share stories, discover their common links, and decide whether to date.
Sathya and Monisha discover that they have unrequited love in their lives and decide to find their school crushes to express their emotions. And in the process of doing so, they discover whether they are compatible and attracted enough to take the relationship forward. At two hours and 21 minutes, With Love aims to tell a warm romantic story through today's lens.
Director Madhan's With Love takes its sweet time to capture your attention. The initial portions begin with Abishan Jeevinth living his role (as Sathyan) with honesty. However, the director-turned-actor's performance takes a while to find its rhythm. Once he settles into it and makes Sathya the boy-next-door, the story pulls you in. The school flashback portions expose Abishan's inexperience as an actor, but he impresses in the present-day portions by portraying vulnerability, fear, and shyness in approaching a woman.
It is Anaswara Rajan who charms us all with her cute expressions and, more importantly, executes comedy. Her little expressions, sparks of ruggedness of a backbencher, and the love in her eyes make Monisha one of the most likeable characters. With Love takes us through a nostalgic ride to school days when glances meant love, FLAMES were affirmations, and holding hands meant forever. It also sheds light on how bullying, introversion, and insecurities change and shape a person.
With Love is a mixed bag - while it features some interesting ideas, it doesn't come together as a whole. Abishan's Sathyan has an emotional outburst about his love life with his sister, but the emotion doesn't carry through. The reason behind this disconnect is the film never establishes the relationship between the brother and sister beyond a handful of video calls. We get dialogues about Sathyan's broken relationship with his father, but the story doesn't go beyond that. The film would have benefitted from showing their bond rather than just telling us about it.
Sathyan, as an adult, is labelled endangered green forest by Anaswara. However, his character exhibits red flag behaviour like checking his partner's phones and brushing aside his flaws during confrontation. But, this aspect is hardly explored, because Monisha is all about overlooking his flaws as they're harmless for her.
Anaswara's school love story is cute, but when she meets her crush as an adult, the transition feels unconvincing. Despite the shortcomings, Anaswara's performance makes it work. It's also interesting to see a woman going after what she wants. After Abishan and Anaswara, Kavya Anil's Esther lights up the screen and takes us back to school days.
With Love finds its footing when the two leads figure each other out, confront past regrets, and arrive at a compatible state in their relationship. Shreyaas Krishna's visuals scream freshness. They're warm, colourful, and youthful. Sean Roldan's songs and background music also help the film remain refreshing. But the incorporation of the classic Aval Varuvala song from Nerrukku Ner as a mere tool to evoke applause didn't land.
With Love scores big in interconnecting the stories of Abishan and Anaswara well, but it lacks the cohesiveness to emerge as a fully satisfying romantic drama.