Realism is usually the biggest casualty in romantic movies in Tamil cinema. Various factors like impractical situations, a necessity to project the hero's heroism and stunt sequences aided by graphics ensure that such films rarely, if ever, reflect the real world. The few movies that do, fall into the 'art movie' category, being too slow to be entertaining. Kaadhal successfully bridges the gap between naturalism and entertainment. Inspite of being a cliched rich girl-poor boy love story, its realistic characterization and situations give us the impression of watching reality itself rather than a movie's take on it.

Iswarya(Sandhya), the school-going daughter of a rich man falls for Murugan(Bharath), a mechanic and pursues him rather aggressively. Soon Murugan falls in love with her too. When Iswarya's family fixes up an alliance for her, she asks Murugan to take her away and marry her. So the young couple elope to Chennai where they request the help of Stephen(Sukumar), Murugan's relative.

Kaadhal is definitely one of the most 'natural' movies I have seen. Artificial and cinematic moments are almost completely absent as Bharath and Sandhya first fall in love and then go on the run. Many sequences, like Sandhya's coming-of-age function, are so realistic that we feel that we are actually a participant rather than an onlooker in the celebrations. All the supporting characters feel completely real and every expression of emotion and every line spoken seem straight from the heart rather than the product of a script writer's imagination. Kaadhal achieves the most difficult job of a movie - making us forget that it is a movie!

The romance between Bharath and Sandhya is cute but it is after they elope that the movie really takes off. This is not one of those movies where the hero fights off rowdies, finds an unfinished building to move in with his lover or starts a small hotel to support her and soon becomes a big hotelier! The harsh reality of life hits the young couple within a single day of running away. Sandhya's predicament(which she has trouble talking about even to Bharath) as they wait for their friend and the way they spend the night without a place to stay all ring true and make them earn our sympathy. Their sneaking around in the men's hostel leads to some funny moments too in the middle of all the sadness.

Because of its realism, Kaadhal manages to present a lead pair that we care for and who we wish would get together. This helps us get involved in the movie. There is a sequence where Sandhya's uncle, a calm and reasonable man, takes Bharath and Sandhya in the car. Inspite of a perfectly normal conversation, the scene manages to generate real tension only because we have come to care for Bharath and Sandhya intimately. After such realism throughout, the climax seems a little cinematic and rushed. What is most surprising about this is that the climax is actually based on a real character and true happenings. Looking back, it is a powerful and emotional climax but it fails to have a strong impact while watching the movie because of the way it is handled.

While director Balaji Sakthivel guides most of the movie with a firm hand, his one weak area seems to be comedy. While the Bharath's assistant raises laughs with his dialogs and delivery, his acts when Sukumar visits the shop, are extremely crude. Similarly, Sukumar's story about his entry into the hostel is not very funny and also doesn't fit into the movie at that point.

With Chellame and now this, Bharath seems to be getting some plum projects. He fits the role perfectly here, be it his body language as the mechanic or his softness with Sandhya. His helplessness after he arrives in the city is touching while his sincere attempt to make Sandhya happy shines through. Sandhya has a very expressive face and puts it to good use when pursuing Bharath. It is a terrific performance that brings before our eyes a hotheaded girl who gets what she wants without thinking too much about the consequences. She joins the short list of actresses(so far, I can think of only Sneha) who acts without seeming to act though she negates a lot of it by overacting(even if for just a minute or so) during the climax. She takes most of the blame for the climax seeming cinematic. Sukumar comes through in both the heavy and light portions. The actors playing Sandhya's father and uncle get a lot of the credit for adding realism to the proceedings. Debutante Joshua Andrews delivers a great soundtrack. Unakkena... is soulful and melodious while Kirukiruvena... sounds fresh because of the way a single word is repeated. The fast-paced Thottu Thottu... and Poovum Pudikkuthu... are both catchy.