The credit for this beautiful movie should go to the script, its lead actors - Shalini and Madhavan and the director, Mani Ratnam. There is nothing new with the story, it is an ordinary everyday love story that happens at every railway station / bus stop in urban India. That is also its selling point, that it could talk to the average Indian viewer and the language - the script of the film reaches out to the audience in a simple unhurried fashion. Shalini and Madhavan, the lead couple in Alaipayuthey are definitely better choices and have better chemistry than Rani Mukherjee and Vivek Oberoi in Saathiya.
The songs are incredible, we have hummed them for the last 10 years ever since the movie hit the screen in 2000, some of the very best of A.R.Rehman. Growing up in urban India of the late nineties I love this movie because I can relate to it, I know those characters. Shalini is the girl next door, Madhavan is the representative of motor bike Romeos, an ever present species in all Indian cities.
And just in case, I am not bowled over, Mani Ratnam has included Kannur(my ancestral town) and the laterite cliffs of Payyambalam beach which buys my loyalty every time. If there is a love story/movie I'd be asked to pick, Alaipayuthey will be it.
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