Naane Varuvean

<p>Prabhu and Kathir are identical twins. While Prabhu is innocent, Kathir has always been a troublemaker. When Kathir beats up the neighbor kid, their father ties Kathir up in the backyard to a tree. Kathir goes missing overnight, apparently kidnapped by an unnamed psychotic person. Kathir kills the psycho and returns home, where he continues his erratic behavior. Kathir locks Prabhu inside a wooden box and kills his father. Kathir’s mother does not turn him in to the cops but instead seeks the help of a local saint. The saint tells her that the twins cannot coexist and have to be separated to save one of them. Frustrated, their mother abandons Kathir in a temple and flees with Prabhu. Years later, Prabhu is a well-settled family man with a loving wife, Bhuvana, and a daughter, Sathya. At the age of 12, Sathya starts developing symptoms of . She starts talking to some unknown person and often loses sleep. After repeatedly hearing his daughter talk to herself in the middle of the night, Prabhu plants a baby monitor in her room. She breaks the monitor and throws it out of the room, revealing that the unknown person asked her to break the monitor or he will kill Prabhu. Worried by the recent happenings, Prabhu takes his daughter to a . Sathya reveals that the unknown person is Sonu, a small boy who talks to her often. Despite Prabhu and the psychiatrist rejecting Sathya’s claim that Sonu exists, Sathya is still adamant that he is real. Based on his own research, Prabhu hires a group of young , whom he came across on . The technical team plants technical equipment to monitor the inside Sathya’s room. At the middle of the night, the team finds footprints.The door is locked, where they start hearing Sathya’s voice again. Terrified and fearing for Sathya’s life, Prabhu tries to open the door, but the door unlocks itself and Sathya begins to talk in . The crew helps Prabhu understand and translate Sathya’s communication. Possessed by Sonu’s voice, Sathya reveals that Prabhu has to deal with Kathir and put an end to his atrocities that caused Sonu’s death. The psychiatrist suggests to Prabhu to fulfill the requests of Sonu’s spirit. It is revealed that Kathir, who was abandoned by his mother and Prabhu, struggled to find livelihood, where he was abused by people. Unable to control his thirst for killing, Kathir ended up killing them. Eventually, Kathir found the love of his life, Madhuri, a mute woman. They get married and settled in a remote cabin in the forest with twins Sonu and Manu. One day, Sonu hid himself in his father’s jeep and followed him to his father’s hunt. He instead witnesses his father killing a bunch of tourists. Kathir explains to Sonu that he will not be able to understand and requests him to hide this from the rest of the family. Eventually, Sonu told Madhuri and Manu about Kathir’s true nature. In the fear of losing his family again, Kathir locked up the twins and Madhuri. Despite her pleadings that she will not report to the cops about Kathir, he refused to leave her and the twins. In the ensuing argument, Kathir ended up accidentally killing Madhuri with his knife. Sonu was also accidentally killed in the altercation. Prabhu, Sathya, the psychiatrist, and Prabhu’s friend Guna travel to , a North Indian hill town backed by huge acres of lush green forests. Sathya’s mental health eventually starts deteriorating. Prabhu takes Sathya to Sonu’s school. Upon finding Manu, she tries to talk with him, but starts running away in fear. She speaks in Marathi and signals in , gaining Manu’s trust. Sathya promises to save Manu from Kathir with his uncle Prabhu’s help. Manu asks Sathya and the others to meet him later that night at his home and cautions them to be careful. Prabhu and Kathir eventually meet up after a long time, where Prabhu confesses that he knows about Kathir’s urge to kill and pleads him to leave Manu and tells him that he will not report anything to the authorities. Kathir vehemently refuses, and a desperate Prabhu fights him. Possessed by Sonu, Sathya exhibits her archery skills and hurts Kathir to stop him from killing Prabhu. Manu threatens Kathir that he will jump down the cliff if Kathir does not stop. Prabhu tackles Kathir off the cliff with him, to their death. Sonu leaves Sathya as a result. Prabhu comes back climbing the cliff top. He claims that everything has been sorted out and that Kathir is dead. However, Manu asks Prabhu to feel Kathir’s existence, using , to confirm whether he is dead or not, by closing his eyes. It is not revealed whether Kathir is dead, alive or has possessed Prabhu. When Prabhu suddenly opens his eyes, the screen cuts to black. announced a project with Dhanush with the tentative title . On 14 January 2021, the film’s title was announced to be . Thanu was revealed to be producing the film under the banner , while Selvaraghavan was announced to be directing the film marking his 5th collaboration with Dhanush after , , and and was announced as the music composer. It was reported that Dhanush himself wrote the story of the film. and were announced to be cinematographer and editor of the film respectively marking former’s sixth collaboration with Dhanush after , , , , and , while marking the latter’s sixth collaboration with Dhanush after , , , , and . However, he was replaced by . Dhanush plays dual roles in this film, doing so for the third time after and . For his role, the actor had undergone archery training. It was reported that there will be two female leads in the film. was cast in as one of the female lead opposite Dhanush. , in addition to directing, is also likely to play a crucial role in this film. Comedian is also playing a key role in this film, collaborating with Dhanush for the second time after . Veteran actor is also added to the cast of the film and he will also be playing an important role in the film. began on 16 October 2021. On 16 February 2022, the next schedule of the shoot started in . On 11 April 2022 it was revealed that Dhanush had wrapped up shooting for the film. Post production works began in April 2022. Dhanush and Selvaraghavan completed dubbing for their portions. The film’s soundtrack and background score is composed by collaborating with Dhanush for the seventh time, followed by , , , , and . The film album consist of 4 songs. Selvaraghavan and Dhanush each wrote the lyrics for two of the songs while wrote the lyrics for rest of the songs. was released worldwide in theaters on 29 September 2022 a day prior to the release of . The film was released in the UK and Europe by Ahimsa Entertainment. The satellite rights of the film were sold to , while the digital streaming rights were acquired by . The film began digitally streaming on from 27 October 2022. The film premiered on on 25 December 2022 on the occasion of . received mixed reviews from critics. On the website , 40% of 5 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.5/10. rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote “Selvaraghavan and Dhanush and back together after a decade and this time, they choose yet another dark theme. With a short runtime and clean screenplay, Naane Varuven’s exploration of psychopath is intriguing”. Krishna Selvaseelan of rated the film 3 out of 5 stars, writing, “‘ ’ is not Selvaraghavan’s strongest output, but even his weakest work is much more interesting than the majority of Tamil cinema.” Janani K of rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote “Naane Varuven sees Dhanush exploring the psychological horror genre. Sadly, it is a missed opportunity because of its sluggish second half”. Kirubhakar Purushothaman of rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and wrote “Dhanush and his director brother Selvaraghavan, known for hits and , have joined hands after about a decade to make a film that is weakest of all their collaborations”. Soundarya Athimuthu of rated the film 2.5 out of 5 and wrote “Naane Varuvean still falls slightly short of excellence with a predictable and flat drama, especially in the second half.” M Suganth of rated the film 2.5 out of 5 and wrote “We get an underwhelming climax that is left open-ended just so there is room for a sequel.” Haricharan Pudipeddi of wrote “Yuvan Shankar Raja’s score plays a key role in amplifying the mood of the film.” Arvind V of rated the film 3 out of 5 and wrote “Yuvan Shankar Raja’s background score is moody in a good sense.” Sudhir Srinivasan of rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote “This film speaks of good and bad, light and darkness, god and devil.” Vijaya Shankar of rated the film 2 out of 5 and wrote “On the whole, Naane Varuvean has interesting ideas and the set-up for an intriguing horror was so well done in the first half, but soon falls short of what it promised and loses its charm due to its underwhelming second half.” rated the film 3 out of 5 stars. On the first day of its release, the film collected crores in India. Despite clashing with after one day of its release, the film managed to collect over crores worldwide.</p>