There was a period when cinema had actresses and actors share the limelight equally. However, over the years it should have only improved but many actresses these days choose glamour to be noticed rather than “acting” and donning impactful roles. Talking about impactful roles, there are directors, who genuinely direct storylines that do not discriminate roles according to one’s gender and few true examples of such film-makers are Gautham Menon and Mani Ratnam.

Gautham Menon’s stories are simple and sensible that do not glorify anyone or anything else but real love. Gautham Menon’s one such masterpiece is the beautifully weaved movie ‘Vaaranam Aayiram’ starring Suriya Sivakumar, Simran, Sameera Reddy and Ramya in the lead. Suriya does a double-action role as both the father and the son.

 

He truly nailed his character from two different generations and three different life scenarios. He never proved his “macho” ness to a woman, he never wanted to own her, he only wanted to love her. He was understanding, gentle and an absolutely charming lover. However, what made him even better was that he never demanded a character which would be glorified by the actresses in the film.

What stood out in the film above all is the characters played by the leading ladies, especially Simran. An actress need not necessarily choose roles with some extremely strong, hard-worker who is not given equality. Doing a simple yet longer role which will remain etched in the hearts of a million is what’s important. Simran’s role was simply brilliant and needless to say she nailed the role with her extraordinary acting skills. Her transformation from a young college going woman to an aged lady was very realistic. It is something rare to find in this generation of actresses.

 

As for Sameera Reddy, she melted our hearts with her charm and Ramya’s presence was a delight to watch. The story as a whole only made us believe to never loose hope in love. There wasn’t stalking, murdering due to rejection or anything that demeaned one another or creating hatred.

The roles of these women were impactful in ways which provided a new dimension for choosing characters in a film. The characters of Simran, Sameera and Ramya were not dumbed down where the hero falls in love with a less intellectual heroine. These characters were their real self like all the real women in the country doing what they love while they fall in love.

These characters are important to watch, more necessary to learn from and most of all, more relatable to create examples from. These characters pave the way to the development of Kollywood’s film industry. We are not saying there are no such movies, but it will be great to watch more of such movies!