It is always amazing to come across a movie that does so many things wrong. Almost every scene in this movie evokes a feeling of "what was the director thinking?", invoking memories of other stinkers like Monisha En Monalisa. Badly defined characters behaving in impractical ways, ridiculous situations and a silly, miscalculated ending are just some of the things wrong here. While its usually things present in a movie that make it enjoyable, Anbe Un Vasam had me searching for things that improved the movie by not being present! In that category, a vulgar comedy track and unnecessary stunts were the two things I could come up with. Barring those, the director employs every trick in the book to make the movie virtually unwatchable.

Ashwin(Ashwin), who has relocated from Ooty, joins the college in the fourth year and slowly falls for Rathi, who reciprocates his feelings too. Scared by another love affair, where the girl gave in to the threats of her parents and agreed to marry the groom of their choice after dumping her lover, Ashwin suggests to Rathi that they get married too. But Rathi, who wants to wait till he gets a good job and is well-settled, sees his insistence as lack of trust in her and walks away hurt.

With most of the action set in a college(and 'Venniradai' Moorthy as one of the professors), it was pretty clear that the movie was going to aim low. But I was still unprepared for the silliness that confronted me in almost every scene. Instead of the usual dance competition, we get a tennis tournament where Aswin and Rathi play tennis as though it were badminton and win the cup. That makes their friends put up posters wishing that the pair would become a couple in real life too! And Rathi's character is so poorly defined and so vague that even her acceptance of Ashwin's love came as a surprise (though I guess the positive thinkers could think of this as a twist!)

The director seems almost determined to make sure that he gets nothing right and unfortunately, he has succeeded. For instance, he introduces a suitor for Rathi after making her fight with Ashwin. But instead of increasing the suspense by promoting the love triangle, he puts it to rest almost immediately in a completely tame way. Ashwin and Rathi then take turns with their silly thoughts and actions. Any hopes that the director would salvage something with a strong climax are eventually dashed too as it turns out to be another colossal mistake that doesn't work at any level. It achieves nothing, provides no closure and simply irritates us even more.

Ashwin walks in a rather odd way and unfortunately, that is the most noticeable thing about him. Rathi seems to have acted without any makeup. But she is definitely cute and deserves much better movies. Raghuvaran seems to be regretting agreeing to appear even while he is acting. Karunas goes through his usual routine of shouting and trying to generate some laughs. The 'student for a day' takeoff on Mudhalvan appears to hold some promise but as with other things, it is abandoned before even having a chance to try and make us laugh.