Rishikanth, the hero, leaves his hometown and goes to Dubai after a heartbreak. After five years, he returns to his village, only to discover that his family has secretly arranged a marriage for him. Forced by his family, he agrees to the wedding, and he marries Anishma Anilkumar.
On the first night of their marriage, Rishikanth tries to open up and have a heart-to-heart conversation with his wife. However, Anishma leaves and attempts to elope with her lover. After discovering the truth, what decision does Rishikanth make? Does his married life succeed, or does Anishma’s love win? Modha Rathiri tells this story through the realistic lifestyle of village people, combined with humour.
Director Raja Karuppusamy naturally portrays the incidents that take place in a wedding house and realistically captures the happiness, sadness, expectations and conflicts among the family members. The film makes us laugh in several places while also making us think.
Rishikanth, who plays the hero, gives hope that he can fill the space of a leading man with his performance. In the role of Marudhu, he performs with restraint and adds strength to the screenplay. In many scenes, he effectively expresses his emotions even without saying much.
Anishma Anilkumar, who plays the female lead, once again takes on a powerful character after Sirai and handles it with ease, earning appreciation. She has very little dialogue in the first half. Even though she performs almost throughout the second half without speaking much, she earns applause in the climax when she finally expresses her inner pain and breaks down.
Chetan, Bugs, Sangeetha Balan, Banup Priya, Varshini Karmekam, Abdul Lee, A. Venkatesh and the rest of the cast add considerable strength to the screenplay. Rather than appearing like actors performing roles, they express their emotions like real village people.
Cinematographer Surendran Paranjothi has filmed both the setting and the visuals naturally, just like the characters. He successfully creates the feeling of being present at an actual wedding and inside a wedding household. His handling of the night sequences is particularly impressive.
The songs composed by Bharath Sankar are designed to reflect the story and the emotions of the characters. Although the music of some songs seems to linger in parts of the background score, it nevertheless gives life to the scenes.
Although the story takes place over a single day, editor Ashok Arjun has arranged the scenes neatly without affecting the natural flow of the narrative. Despite having a large number of characters, he has done an excellent job of ensuring that the audience’s attention reaches all of them.
Although the story begins with a wedding ceremony and concludes with the first night, director Raja Karuppusamy uses the intervening events to explore human emotions. While he touches upon love and several other issues in a simple and humorous manner, he presents them in a way that leaves a deeper impression on the audience.
The way the characters have been designed, the performances extracted from the actors, and the realistic portrayal of events inside a wedding household help the film rise above conventional commercial cinema and make it a noteworthy creation.
