Thirumanam Enum Nikkah

Thirumanam Enum Nikkah is like the romance dramas in which there will be no story at all if the leads talk to each other in a frank manner and so will have to keep pretending for the plot to go on. It is based on a single construct — two lovers belonging to the same religion (and even the same sect) mistaking the other to be of a different religion and so pretending to be of the same religion. It all starts when Vijayaraghavachari aka Raghavan ( Jai) approaches a tout for a ticket to Coimbatore. He is asked to pretend as Abubacker and on the train, he meets Vishnupriya (Nazriya), who is actually travelling under the name of her colleague Aayisha. He earns her confidence and both think of the other as a Muslim. On their return to Chennai, they realize they are in love but carry on the pretense of being a Muslim. He lies to Shaukat Ali, a respected Unani doctor, to get to know about Islam, while she learns about the practices followed by Muslims from Aayisha. Meanwhile, both their families are fixing a match for them and Shaukat's daughter, Naseema (Heebah), falls for Raghavan. When they realize their true identities eventually, they are left confused as the both seem alien to each other given that they now looking at one another from a different lens.

The case of mistaken identity isn't new in the romance genre and director Anis tries to lend some freshness to this oft-seen premise by using religious identity as the point of conflict for a romance. He comes up with scenes that are mostly plausible to show how such a misunderstanding could occur. He nicely parallels the lives of the two leads to show how similar they are. Both Raghavan and Priya's have large, traditional families; both have a friend at office who informs their decision; both use details from their lives to make their lies believable (he uses Shaukat Ali's words while she gets her awareness of Muslim religion from her friend Ayesha); both have a character whose only purpose is to be the third wheel...