It’s the season of romance in Tamil cinema. After a drought of good romance dramas and rom-coms, several titles like Idhayam Murali, Vishwanath & Sons, Once More, and Hi are in the limelight. Joining this list is Pyaar Prema Kalyanam (PPK), the Netflix film set to release later this week on August 21.
“I am happy that many rom-coms featuring young actors are coming out, which is good because these become stories the youth can relate to,” says Elan, who has directed and starred in the lead in PPK. Saanve Megghana, who is playing the female lead opposite Elan, feels glad that many rom-coms like With Love have performed well. “Also, I have always been a fan of the genre. So I think I manifested being in a rom-com like this,” she says with a wide smile.
The very title of Pyaar Prema Kalyanam is a play on Elan’s directorial debut, the 2018 Harish Kalyan-starrer Pyaar Prema Kaadhal. Elan directed that film when he was in his early 20s, and looking back, he believes a film like that had to be done at that age. “It was such a wild film, and we didn’t think about a lot of things, like, for instance, the political correctness of it all. Also, I dared to write and shoot intimate scenes. I thought, why shouldn’t I show a couple kissing? But now I’m a filmmaker who’s decided not to show all that (laughs). This new PPK is a film we want everyone in the family to watch together,” he says.
The new PPK has an original screenplay by Nivedita Pohankar, whose sister Aaditi Pohankar played one of the female leads in Elan’s last film, Star. “Aaditi, Nivedita and I have been friends since even before Star. This is a story Nivedita told me randomly at a dinner. She said, ‘A woman runs away after getting married.’ I asked, ‘Why?’ and she said, ‘Because she wonders why she must go live at his place; so she asks him to live at her place.’ Elan instantly liked the idea and suggested Nivedita, a writer and short filmmaker, to flesh it out into a feature-length script.
Saanve Megghana and Elan in a still from ‘Pyaar Prema Kalyanam’
“Men can write good women characters, but when someone like Nivedita writes, she brings more authenticity to it,” says Saanve, adding that only a woman can write about another woman’s vulnerability. Elan agrees that Nivedita has brought the script its much-needed female gaze. “This isn’t a thought men would naturally think of. And her writing is the reason for the many little, beautiful ideas that are present throughout the film,” he adds.
In the film, Saanve plays Pavithra, a young newlywed woman who refuses to entertain the thought of moving in with her in-laws. She wonders why the men can’t do it — a thought millions of women go through all around the world. While playing the character, Saanve understood how differently many women handle their emotions. “I understood how many women are conditioned to suppress their emotions. I speak up only when needed. But Pavi speaks up no matter what, and she doesn’t think it is wrong. She is not someone who blindly follows anything and questions everything with the purest of intentions. So there are women who suppress things, and when the time comes, they confront it.”
Saanve Megghana on her most favourite on-screen performance
“I like performances of many actors like Prakash Raj, Kovai Sarala, Brahmanandam, Vadivelu, Naseeruddin Shah, Nawazuddin Siddiqui. But Sridevi ma’am is my favourite actor, and if I have to speak of one performance, I will mention her performance in the Telugu film Kshana Kshanam. She does very minute things in that performance that make it so relatable.”
Pavithra, Saanve says, is so relatable that she didn’t have to stress about approaching the material. “In the book Audition by Michael Shurtleff, he speaks of how an actor must look for themselves, or an element they can connect with, in the character. So I feel a lot of empathy for my characters. I think about their internal conflict, their familial ties, and so on, and I think that’s important for me,” says the actor who made her Tamil debut with Kudumbasthan.
For Elan, PPK realises a lifelong desire to work in front of the camera. In an earlier chat ahead of Star, he had mentioned how he wished to realise his father’s dream of becoming a hero. “Acting is a wish, but filmmaking continues to be my passion,” he had said, and it seems like the time has come for him to realise that wish. He calls it a work of destiny. “After Star, I tried pitching other movies, but I was also aware that I shouldn’t delay my project. Earlier, my motto was, ‘Take as much time you need, but ensure when you do it, it’s your best.’ But now, my idea is that you should keep doing something. When we do that, we will start learning new lessons, which in turn will help us do our best.” That said, even for PPK, Elan initially approached many actors to play the part. “But they felt it was too small for them. So, on one hand, I had this desire to act, and on the other, I couldn’t find a suitable actor. So I decided to give it a shot.”
Elan and Saanve Megghana
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It’s natural for many director-turned-actors to feel like an impostor; doubts about whether they were taking an opportunity from another, more capable actor might creep in. Elan says, “Many sparks of confidence motivated me. For instance, I was supposed to act in Star. But I wasn’t ready back then. This time, I knew I could pull it off, but I still had a few doubts. At that time, my father and my mentors in cinema gave me the confidence to do it.” One of those mentors was Yuvan Shankar Raja, the ace composer with whom Elan has teamed up for the third consecutive time.
Now, it is obvious that Pyaar Prema Kalyanam takes a light-hearted look at traditional gender roles with a quirky subversion — the trailer itself reveals many spaces for humour that the film is set to tap into. And so, the ultimate result of the film now rests on how neatly it resolves the conflict. “Both the writer and I had a lot of confusion with respect to the resolution. We had a few options before arriving at the one you will see in the film,” says Elan, adding that he doesn’t wish to tell the audiences what to do or not do. “I believe we should just initiate an argument; we shouldn’t give solutions. Each viewer should find their own solutions.”
Pyaar Prema Kalyanam is set to premiere on Netflix on August 21
Published – August 19, 2026 08:09 pm IST
