Oh Manapenne!
Oh Manapenne! is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language romantic comedy film directed by Kaarthikk Sundar in his directorial debut and written by Deepak Sundarrajan. A remake of the Telugu film Pelli Choopulu, it stars Priya Bhavani Shankar and Harish Kalyan as a girl and boy who meet during a matchmaking event. How their aspirations bring them together forms the rest of the story.
The rights to remake Pelli Choopulu in Tamil were initially acquired by Gautham Vasudev Menon in 2016, and the film titled Pon Ondru Kandein was to be directed by Senthil Veerasamy, with Vishnu Vishal and Tamannaah Bhatia starring. The project faced delays and was ultimately shelved due to budgetary constraints; by November 2019, it had undergone a complete change in cast and crew. The new film, Oh Manapenne!, began principal photography in December 2019 and wrapped in February 2020. It was released on 22 October 2021 via Disney+ Hotstar.
Plot
Karthik, lethargic by nature, completes his B.E. by clearing his subjects after almost five years. His dream is to become a chef and open a restaurant, but he receives no support from his father. Shruthi is a very focused girl who works hard to fulfill her dreams of going to Australia. However, her father shows no interest, as she is a girl and he wanted a boy instead. When Karthik and Shruthi meet at a matchmaking event, her younger cousin, Barath, accidentally locks the door, which jams very often, leaving them stuck in the same room. To pass time, they talk about their past.Shruthi reveals that she was in love with a man named Arjun. They both wanted to start a food truck business. Arjun went to Bangalore to talk with his father about their love and business. Meanwhile, Shruthi started her plan eagerly and was ready to surprise Arjun by buying the truck. But things went wrong and Arjun did not come back, because he became engaged. Shruthi and her father waited for him but when they realised Arjun was not coming back, her father decided to get her married to someone else.
On his turn, Karthik reveals that he was unemployed and always went out with his two friends, Sathya and Faizal. So Karthik and his friends made cooking videos, as he is passionate about cooking. But it was not profitable enough, so they took to prank videos and were caught by Karthik's father, which ended their plan.
It is then revealed, after the door is fixed, that Karthik came to the wrong address for his matchmaking event. Later, Karthik goes to his actual matchmaking event, which is with a rich family. Meanwhile, Shruthi tells the man coming to her matchmaking event that she is not interested in the marriage. The family of Karthik's prospective bride wants him to be able to run a business, so he and Shruthi decide to operate the food truck themselves, with Karthik as the chef, and Shruthi in charge of the business side of things. At first, they face many difficulties, mainly because of Karthik and his friends' laziness as well as fighting with Shruthi and giving up the food truck.
Later, Karthik visits Shruthi's house and informs her father that he should be proud to have such a responsible daughter. He also claims that if he ever gets a son like him, he would wish to have a daughter like Shruthi and insists that he let her pursue her dreams. Because of this, Shruthi understands the good nature of Karthik and later convinces Karthi's father that he is a talented cook by cooking them Karthik's recipe. Then they kickstart their business with the support of both their parents. After this, their food truck became a major success. In the process, they fall in love without realising it, but Karthi has an engagement party a few days later, so they drift apart. After realising they love each other, they come back together through a radio show organised by Shruthi's friend Ramya. With the support of their family and friends, Karthik and Shruthi reunite successfully.
Cast
Production
Development
In late October 2016, Gautham Vasudev Menon bought the rights to remake the Telugu film Pelli Choopulu in Tamil, under his banner Ondraga Entertainment. The film was titled Pon Ondru Kandein, and was to be directed by Menon's assistant Senthil Veerasamy. In March 2017, Menon chose Vishnu Vishal and Tamannaah Bhatia as the lead actors. S. R. Kathir was chosen as the cinematographer, with Darbuka Siva and Praveen Anthony as the music composer and editor respectively. Though Vishal anticipated that filming would begin in July or August 2017, the start of filming faced repeated delays, and ultimately by December, Vishal opted out of the project as he could no longer allot new dates due to the delays. The project was eventually dropped due to budget constraints.Though Menon initially planned on continuing with a new cast and lower budget, by November 2019 the project had undergone a complete change in cast and crew. The new film was jointly produced by A Studios LLP, A Havish Production, SP Cinemas, Madhav Media and Third Eye Entertainment, with Kaarthikk Sundar, a former associate of A. L. Vijay, making his directorial debut, and Satyanarayana Koneru and Ramesh Varma Penmesta handling production duties. The screenplay was written by Deepak Sundarrajan, cinematography was handled by Krishnan Vasant, and editing by Kripakaran. The title Oh Manapenne! was revealed on 1 October 2020, derived from the song of the same name from Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa. Kaarthikk said, "We wanted to have a title that refers to weddings/matchmaking. The names that we had zeroed in on were either too old or not interesting enough", but when he was listening to the song, he chose that as the film's title. Kaarthikk chose not to do a shot-for-shot remake, but kept the original film's essence, and added, "Since Southern States have many commonalities, there was not much to change".