Alicia I love this movie so much

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Arunkumar Mohunraj 20 years ago when I was a kid watching this movie I cried and laughed and had goosebumps from scene to scene. I have always admired Manirathnam for his brilliance no matter what he does. Lately watching too many international movies have put him at my top list of directors to avoid. He cheats his fans by copying from Hollywood.I just finished watching "To Kill a Mockingbird" 1962 movie with Gregory Peck as lead role. No matter what I said about that guy I always had a thought somewhere in the corner of my mind that "Anjali" movie is his original creation. The entire sequence of Prabhu in Anjali forms the core theme of "To Kill a Mockingbird"How the kids are scared of a neighbor. How the kids run at night and knock on his door and run back. How the kids bet to go there at night. And finally how this guy is not as fearful as they have always imagined. I still rate this movie at 4 because 20 years ago I did not know this and he had given be a great feeling then.

meenal-an There are 2 major aspects of this movie which makes it very interesting - 1. ManiRatnam's unique and brilliant style of movie-making, 2. Children.The movie actually reminds me of the novel 'To Kill a Mocking Bird'. And I should say that Mani has done a great job indianising the novel and making a commercial movie out of it.The characters of Jem, Scout and Boo Radley from the novel have been very well depicted in the movie.The brother-sister relationship (played by Tarun and Shruthi), different kinds of people in the colony, the scarily unseen neighbor(played by Prabhu) who is spied by the kids, how the society discriminates certain people (a mentally retarded sister in this case), how the 2 children take the brunt of their neighborhood kids ridicule and then learn to handle it - have all been very well depicted.Though the screenplay is not perfect and definitely not as good as ManiRatnam's other movies, you would still find it interesting and unforgettable. All the characters have been very well played (Credit goes to the director for getting it out of the kids). And not to forget the great music and great cinematography. Overall its a 'must watch' movie.

jazzyjez This is an unashamedly populist film. As a result, it's got the occasional cringe-worthy cheesy sequence (and I'm thinking the Science Fiction / Star Wars pastiche here), and it doesn't really grapple with the reality of bringing up a disabled kid.However, it has some excellent and very funny scenes, and it does deal brilliantly with social attitudes to disability. It features the full masala quotient, with fights, singing, dancing, bad jokes and pyaar-ishq-mohabbat. It also made me cry like a baby.In conclusion, an utterly excellent film, although not without flaws (as Mani Ratnam himself admits), which features stunning and thoroughly convincing performances. Should be seen by everybody.

Prabhakaran So Its a film about kids and within them a mentally retarded kid. And it is Mani's version. If you like kids then you would like this movie. There were talks about the weak script. May be. And the finest part is the mentally retarded kid Shamili. Showing a really tough and pathetic life of a mentally retarded kid would be a realistic movie. But it needs lot of stress to reach common cinema going audience. Mani did it with his touch of perfection and poetic sense and a bit of reality. Out of all other E.T. stuff the thing that strikes the viewer is 'Shamili', the mentally retarded kid. I wonder how could he made shamili, then a small kid (just 3 yrs old), to act like a mentally retarded kid. And another maestro (who made me a fanatic about the songs of this movie when it was released) played his perfect role apt for this movie, is Ilayaraja. It came in 1990, the year dedicated for mentally retarded children. Good movie. You will enjoy it I bet.