By Madhumithaa S
Respectably enough, Pradeep Ranganathan’s Love Today begins with a disclaimer that no animals or birds were harmed in the making of the movie.
Errrrrr…did he forget something?
What about harming humans with this movie?
I am so furious that I’m not sure about where to start, and how to go about. But, the one thing I won’t do is stay silent as something so atrocious is being made, screened, streamed, and watched at this day and age.
For someone who has always had difficulty in trusting people, I consider this movie an absolute treasure because now, I need therapy. Not sure if I owe it to “Uthaman” Pradeep or Nikitha because the competition was quite fierce! But to both their credits, the remote possibility of me believing that there’s still hope in this world, and there are still people out there worth trusting is now completely gone! If my inability to trust people was the problem so far, now it’s become my blind fear for humans. I’m just outright scared of the species, and I’m not sure how easy this is going to be to overcome. Sounds like an effective movie, doesn’t it? Cheers to that!
Allow me to skip to the best part in the movie. The most important message that got screamed into our ears, loud and clear.
“A video of a woman going viral determines the course of her life. Period.”
She could be someone educated.
She could be a working professional.
She could be from any economic background.
She could be an orphan.
She could be surrounded by friends and family.
She could be single.
She could be in a relationship.
She could be married.
She could be a virgin.
She could be sexually active, but of course in secret!
She could literally be anybody and be doing anything with her life.
But, all of this only until there’s a video of her that goes viral.
According to the movie, these are the options available to a woman when a video of her leaks on the internet:
Option 1: She can choose to end her life.
Option 2: She can break down and cry inconsolably to make people believe that she was not the woman in the video.
Option 3: She can go and beg her partner to believe that it was not her. If he believes her, she can carry on with her life on his terms, of course. I mean she is lucky enough to have found a man so magnanimous! What more does she need?
If he doesn’t believe her, I think we are back to Option 1.
Having deeply considered all these audacious (and not at all atrocious by any means) options, I feel like adding just a couple of more choices that the movie inadvertently missed out on offering us.
Option 0: For starters, she can decide to be strong, and not let herself be destroyed by something that has nothing to do with her. If anything, the video is something completely physical, and no human is defined just by her/his body.
Option -1: She can resolve to never explain/defend herself to anyone…because she need not and should not.
Option -2: She can decide to pursue the perpetrators, and get them penalized.
Option -3: She can just show the middle finger to the world. So what if people think it was her on the video? So what?
I’m going to stop here with the options.
With the movie having competitively disturbing moments and perspectives, this was the winner for me.
Are we still defining women only by their physicality? Why is sex still such a taboo only for women? So what if she has sex? So what if she wants to have multiple sex partners? So what if she is filmed while having sex? So what if a video leaks in the internet? So what if it goes viral?
How does any of this define a woman?
Since swapping is a thing in the movie, let’s swap gender and ask the same questions assuming that the subject is a man.
Except, there are no questions asked when this is about a man.
Signing off abruptly here because I have to find a therapist now, and get started on my sessions before I absolutely lose it like Nikitha did when she was caught with her ex.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Madhumithaa
December 30, 2022
Reblogged this on Madler’s Wander tales.
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madhusudhan194
December 30, 2022
Wow, that was fierce. So i am someone who didn’t love the film and in fact found its third act disappointing but overall found it to be an interesting watch. I haven’t met too many people like the characters of this film but can see from comments on the other threads that the activities the characters engage in are quite prevalent. Regarding the politics of the film, i found the third act problematic but unfortunately as an urban society we are in a transition phase where the technology and purchasing power has changed our lifestyle but the ingrained patriarchy isn’t leaving overnight. So i wasn’t surprised at how the girl reacted to the leak. Isn’t it natural to be shocked, taken aback and maybe act irrationally at least for a brief period of time when something like that happens? IIRC, the guy at the end tells the girl that the whole thing is okay because the video was morphed. And that he trusts her no matter what. Had it not been so and if the girl did sleep with another guy while being in relationship with someone else, he obviously has reasons to be mad. There’s another scene in which he says he has no problem if she had sexual relations before their relationship but can’t accept her giving mixed signals to her ex behind his back. What i found problematic is that the guy’s actions are a lot more shadier and he in fact belongs in jail. The confession scene with Radhika and her reaction to the whole thing completely trivialises his behaviour. Another problematic thing was the happy ending. I just saw no way this guy and the girl having a loyal committed relationship after marriage.
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Ananya
December 31, 2022
I do agree that I found parts of the film to be problematic(especially the guy’s account to harass women) but most of the film aligned with what today’s relationships are like. In relationships maybe 10 or 15 years ago, people were strongly committed to one person, and break ups/ chatting with others were unusual. But in most of the relationships today, partners have an understanding that flirting with others is acceptable and they are aware that their bf/gf do some harmless flirting. And remaining friends with ex is also a lot more common and both partners don’t take these things that seriously. Every relationship might have a different point at which they draw the line.
Personally, most of the film mirrored relationships I have had, but loss of trust was never an issue. I found that the things mentioned in the movie don’t affect a relationship as people are more open-minded about what is acceptable and unacceptable in a relationship today, and there are a lot more other factors that can lead to relationships ending than chatting with others and talking to an ex.
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brangan
December 31, 2022
Ananya: I don’t think the film is “problematic”. I think it is a film that depicts someone whose behaviour is “problematic.”
But some points about the rest of your comment (“most of the film aligned with what today’s relationships are like”):
today, partners have an understanding that flirting with others is acceptable and they are aware that their bf/gf do some harmless flirting
IF you are in a relationship, that’s automatically a commitment. Otherwise, it is NOT a relationship. I am not just talking about romance. If I call someone a friend, then there is a degree of commitment there — otherwise he/she is an “acquaintance.” So maybe the terminology has not kept up with your description of the evolution of “relationships”.
Because what you are describing sounds to me like an “open relationship” rather than a committed one. Because when you are in a relationship, I don’t believe there is such a thing as “harmless flirting” with someone else. Let’s call it for what it is.
Had the couple in this film said “let’s see where this goes, without being exclusive”, then none of this would be an issue. The issue is that they say they want to get MARRIED. And that is a commitment.
Of course, married people “cheat” by getting off on porn or whatever — but when there is an actual person involved, there is nothing “casual” or “harmless” about flirting with person. There are going to be emotional and/or physical consequences.
Another term for this sort of thing: polyamory. But again, that’s not what this couple wants. They want marriage. And to a boomer like me 🙂 , it does seem an issue when your BF’s first thought after he finds out you spent a day with you ex is “did you sleep with him?” That’s a huge deal — psychologically speaking — and it cannot be brushed under the carpet without the inevitable fight/argument to clear things up.
But like everything else in the film, this is brushed aside and we move to the next scene, with the girl having no issues that her guy accused her of such a thing — even if she did lie about going out with the ex.
That was my issue with the film — things like these. (I am speaking about the characterisation of the couple.) If today’s couples are so okay with “harmless” flirting, why do they still place a big deal on female virginity? That would have been a nice thing to explore in Radhika’s big speech, but the film does not go there.
Every relationship might have a different point at which they draw the line.
This is absolutely true. But trust me on this — very few people are really actually truly okay with “remaining friends with ex”. There is a lot of insecurity in that zone, even people don’t show it outwardly 🙂 And again, that is not a place this film goes to.
“I found that the things mentioned in the movie don’t affect a relationship as people are more open-minded”…
But are they really? 🙂 Do we see a single scene of the heroine having a drink with her friends — something that is so common today? For me, the couple in this film seem more “boomer” than my generation (at least those I know).
None of this is a criticism of your comment. More like thinking aloud.
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rsylviana
December 31, 2022
Because when you are in a relationship, I don’t believe there is such a thing as “harmless flirting” with someone else. Let’s call it for what it is.
Parts of your comment has me mighty surprised BR! You don’t believe there is anything like “harmless flirting” when you are in a committed relationship ? I feel as long as all the parties involved (including the “other person”) know that it is indeed harmless I wouldn’t call it problematic or you know whispers cheating.
Take Madhavan in an early scene in Alaipayuthey when he has first realized that he can’t find Shalini and goes to check on her in the railway station. There he bumps into a seemingly old acquaintance and she flirts with him saying “Enna Shakthi ku wait pannitu irukiya ? Olunga ennaiyae kalyaanam pannirukalaam la?” . For which he flirts right back saying “Shakthi kitta oru vaarthai sollidu , yerpaadu pannirlaam”. Wouldn’t this come into the harmless flirting category seemingly pointless within the scheme of things for Karthik’s marriage to Shakthi? Its sort of obvious in the scene that this “other girl” is just an acquaintance and not even a close friend of either Shakthi/Karthik (we don’t see her in any of the other scenes apart from this one) and I doubt that Karthik actually is in proper touch with her or if Shakthi would have a problem if she saw them like this(on a good day that is). Now if this is one of Karthik’s exes then even this seemingly “harmless” line can be thought of as cheating and disrespectful to Shakthi and her commitment to Karthik.
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brangan
December 31, 2022
rsylviana: The example you think — for me — is NOT flirting. It’s more of a casual-funny retort between friends/ex-es/whatever. Telling someone they look nice, for instance, is not flirting.
From what I know (and from my experience), the word “flirting” denotes an actual interest in someone — and lies beyond the friend-zone. And that’s a portal to an open relationship — because if that basic attraction is not there, the “flirting” would not happen.
Again, like I said in the comment, maybe the words we use have not kept up with recent evolutions in relationships.
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brangan
December 31, 2022
To add to the comment above, like Ananya said, “Every relationship might have a different point at which they draw the line.”
So what constitutes “flirting” is itself a very personal decision – and for me, that Madhavan scene is more about his banter-y, retort-y personality than actual “flirting”.
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Madhumithaa
December 31, 2022
Ananya & rsylviana: I agree with you that the movie took up issues that are contemporary and relevant. But my problem is how recklessly they were handled. There was so much scope to have done so many things.
Let’s take the scene where Pradeep questions Nikitha’s virginity. The bare minimum I expected was her to have answered him honestly with some courage. But instead, she had a complete break down while claiming to be innocent. And that’s all we get. This could have easily been shown to us as a difficult conversation that the couple decide to have and sort out with each other.
Coming to flirting, we could at least categorize Nikitha’s calls and texts as flirting. Pradeep on the other hand was approaching random women and asking them to send him “tribal” photos, whatever that means. I have no idea how to possibly treat this behavior as anything normal . It’s borderline criminal because we have no idea what he is upto with these pictures. Again, he claims to be innocent, ofcourse!
Of all the things that the movie could have normalized, it decided to normalize such an abnormal behavior!
The worst for me was when he gets suspicious and starts blaming all of his friends for the messages sent from the fake account. He has a problem when his girlfriend receives messages from creepy guys, while he is one among them. How does he even get the right to be upset is something I refuse to understand.
This one last thing because I can’t not say this! To show us that Nikitha’s face was artificially morphed into the obscene video, we are shown another girl’s face! How easy was it to have avoided showing this in the movie?!
It’s okay if the movie didn’t take a progressive approach to things. But there was no need for showing us a deliberately regressive approach while dealing with issues that are so relevant in the society. It was just reckless!
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Karthik
December 31, 2022
From what I know (and from my experience), the word “flirting” denotes an actual interest in someone — and lies beyond the friend-zone.
That is the exact opposite of what I’ve understood the word “flirting” to be. Friend-zone is a serious zone. Flirting is superficial. Flirting, in my understanding, is just a performative act without actual intent or interest in anything serious. (Whether the act violates the boundaries of a committed relationship or not only depends on the people involved)
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Anu Warrier
January 2, 2023
Echoing rsylvania and Karthik – flirting has nothing to do with ‘actual interest’ in anyone. 🙂 It’s fun, non-serious, and (must be) consensual, of course – that goes without saying. And at the end of the day/night, you part with absolutely no regrets.
Can flirting lead to something more serious? Of course, if both parties so wish.
C’mon, BR. 🙂
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Anu Warrier
January 2, 2023
@ Madhumita, I haven’t watched the film, don’t think I will watch it either, but I was nodding my head along with what you were saying about female characters’ agency.
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Raghu Narayanan
January 2, 2023
The sound of the splash that the movie made at the BO is long gone, but the ripples are still traveling!!!! I think it’s the 2nd Readers Write In post about the movie and we continue to engage in deep conversations about it and this shows the impact – good or bad, this movie has had on the audience.
@Madhumithaa – whatta write-up! It’s emotionally charged and your indignation at the way the subject is handled comes blazing thru!!!
As regards what is ‘flirting’, to state it slightly differently from what BR said earlier, I guess it’s all about the individual’s personal POV. Not just about ‘flirting’, but we have our personal POVs about almost everything that’s happening around us. We also use a common index to identify these POVs. So when a word like flirting is used we go back to our personal definition of what flirting means to us and this personal definition likely going to differ from what someone else thinks of the same word! It’s really fuzzy out there 😀
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ari
January 2, 2023
I haven’t watched this movie yet. But if you want to feel slightly better about the issue of the “video of a woman going viral determines the course of her life”, I suggest watching a movie with a better take on this issue… Malayalam movie ariyippu. If you can sit through the slow pace, then please do watch it. I was so happy for the female protagonist at the end of this movie. Like a boss lady, she chooses what course her life takes and she doesn’t let any “hero” force/emotionally blackmail/manipulate her to do what he wants her to do.
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rsylviana
January 2, 2023
@Madhumithaa – Oh you have me confused for someone else. My comment was entirely to respond to BR’s comment about relationships and flirting vs cheating in general. I already have a very low threshold for Tamil misogynistic movies especially ones that target the “youth” so I haven’t watched this film and don’t intend to do so. I never gave credit for how the film handles the situations/milieu it takes up. Like BR commented on his review of this film , it certainly is a very important film in how it attempts to show(albeit very horrifyingly at places) on how the youngsters of today get together to fall in “love” online and for the industry itself – what with the movie being remade in multiple languages and becoming very financially profitable for the producers and the industry but that’s all the credit I can muster to give this film.
When the hero is a part of or realizes that his friends are part of a social media account that misuses girls’ pictures on false pretenses, ideally he/they should be immediately handed over to the cyber crime authorities so that they can ensure the respective account is deleted pronto among other things or the hero and/or his friends need to be suspended/disbarred from their college(seeing as they are college kids in the movie shudders) or at the very least they need to be publicly named and shamed in the same social media platform that they hold very dearly. When the film does none of this and instead lectures on how the heroine should conduct herself with regards to her virginity, previous relationships and friendships in an attempt to equalize his sins to her mistakes then it’s a lost cause in my books.
P.S: All these details are what I can gather from my own insta browsing , what with this film exploding in the reels there , more so after it became available online. I’ve had to click and ignore such posts for more than two rounds now to actually stop seeing the videos finally.
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Madan
January 2, 2023
Whether flirting is something whomsoever is comfortable with or not, it is certainly not a Gen Z thing and even a married person flirting is ages old. But I will leave definitions aside and consider that maybe there is something about the KIND of flirting shown in Love Today that strikes BR or others as flagrant. I can only judge when I get to watch. Speaking of, is it on any of the apps yet?
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Raghu Narayanan
January 2, 2023
@Madan: Netflix 👍
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Madan
January 2, 2023
Thanks! Will check this out soon then.
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hari prasad
January 2, 2023
Also , the girl getting shocked after knowing the guy watches porn despite sending him nudes felt very .. i don’t know maybe made me go WTF..
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Honest Raj
January 2, 2023
@hari prasad: The girl is essentially asking him: “Why go for junk food when you have a wholesome meal at home?”
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hari prasad
January 2, 2023
But why the girl should pretend that she doesn’t even know the dude consumes junk food?
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Madan
January 2, 2023
Done with it. Well, I rarely agree with madhusudhan’s take on a film but this time I more or less do. I am not comfortable with the film condoning that mass use insta account but even that bit is balanced by the girl bringing out exactly why it is horrible that he would even stand by and let such an account operate even if he didn’t make all the incriminating posts.
But as for the open relationships part, well, I thought at the end of the mess, they decided they only wanted each other so…Houston, do we really have a problem? I thought the film was more about a journey of two commitment-phobic youngsters eventually coming around to realizing just why it is important.
So yeah, other than the fact that Pradeep should go to jail for operating such an account (and so should the other dude who made the porno deep fake), I didn’t really find this a particularly controversial movie. And actually, for all the cross-flirting and the endless doubting each other, the relationship between the two was healthy rather than Pradeep seeking to control or abuse Nikita. And since they didn’t even show the love-making and courtship arc, we were spared the ‘I will stalk you and harass you until you give in’ trope. I admit my view is a little coloured by how entertaining three quarters of the movie were. Pradeep R as an actor was a revelation too, like a new Dhanush. From the point where the film got dead serious, it didn’t work so well but he had no option but to take it home to a kind of Tamil sentimentu ending. You can’t go full Stanley Kubrick here, it won’t go down well.
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Madan
January 2, 2023
I will add here that since the thing that became the talk of this year’s Oscars originated, allegedly, from an ‘open’ marriage that makes Will Smith feel super insecure, open relationships can hardly be a gen z thing? True that you need to define a relationship as open from the start in that case but it appears that the open status was thrust on Will and he relented only because HE can’t be without Jada.
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Madan
January 2, 2023
Sorry, last year’s Oscars! Hasn’t sunk in yet, hehe.
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hari prasad
January 2, 2023
Same here , I wished Love Today was just a fun , light movie that talks about relationships in the Instagram era.
The serious parts in this movie and Comali were just plain boring to watch.
As someone said here , Pradeep has this itch that , his movies should appeal to everyone.
He has Venkat Prabhu like fun ideas but the guy aspires to become this generation’s Vikraman.
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Madan
January 2, 2023
It’s a significant improvement on Comali, that much I will say. So maybe he will transition eventually to a full Venkat Prabhu and avoid Avan Ivan syndrome.
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Cholan Raje
January 2, 2023
I’m a 20-yo NRI. Are teens and young adults in TN really as gross and disgusting as the hero and heroine here? I’m no prude who objects to porn etc., but the “emotional support,” “short films” and borderline/low-key cheating are not something I can see a large portion of any demographic accepting.
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Cholan Raje
January 3, 2023
I also want to note that I like the film because it’s super entertaining. I just think the pair are awful people and will probably resent each other if they settle together.
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Gdb
January 3, 2023
So if i understand this correctly, “modernity” has made it ok for everyone to sleep around with any and everyone in india, but the patriarchy that still exists here makes sure that only the women suffer the consequences of this sleeping around while the men can get away with anything. So it’s like men can have their cake and eat it too.
I love how the men manage to borrow from the west only those things that are convenient for them that makes their life easier , while a giving a damn to how it affects the women. So the whole concept of true equality be damned…All we want is it to be ok to sleep around with anybody we want, but only the girls get called sluts and promiscuous and be shamed bcoz of a sex tape and won’t get good alliances from “good families” sort of thing.
I haven’t seen the movie yet. But from the post and discussion , that is what iam getting.
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Madan
January 3, 2023
““modernity” has made it ok for everyone to sleep around with any and everyone in india, but the patriarchy that still exists here makes sure that only the women suffer the consequences of this sleeping around while the men can get away with anything. So it’s like men can have their cake and eat it too.” – It’s sort of like the West itself during the Hugh Hefner phase, when women were ‘permitted’ to liberate themselves but for the express pleasure of the men themselves. But on top of that, a hypocrisy persists in the discourse whereby we still pretend, against all evidence to the contrary, that we are so ‘sanskari’ and all that. So there is no real acknowledgment of the new liberated norms or the fact that a woman is still at the receiving end of it.
That said, what does not come out in the post and some of the comments (and that it doesn’t surprises me) is at least Love Today does give the female protagonist space to air her indignation at this very double standard where she brings home to her lover just what this normalisation of lewd and vulgar exploitation of women makes them (the women) go through. By that admittedly low standard, the film is a vast improvement on the average mainstream Tamil film (not comparing it a smaller, arty work like Gargi). It lays out the full extent of the disgusting things young men get away with in the name of being liberated but it also brings out the consequences of it for women. For eg, another thing the comments don’t bring out is while the protagonist leaves home in depression (and with suicide possibly on her mind) after the fake porn clip comes out, the guy who made the clip is traced and compelled to issue a public apology and take responsibility for his actions. Which is extremely rare in Tamil cinema – I’d have expected instead for someone like Samudrakani to deliver a sermon as to why the women need to be careful in ‘modern times’ without bringing to book the disgusting actions of the guy who made the deepfake.
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Honest Raj
January 4, 2023
But why the girl should pretend that she doesn’t even know the dude consumes junk food?
It’s not that she’s pretending that she doesn’t know – it’s a bit like, “how can someone have Biryani for breakfast!”
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