Readers Write In #702: Lover (Tamil movie) – Slap in whose face at the end?

By சராசரி பெண் (Ordinary woman)

These words just poured out after watching the recent Tamil movie – Lover

Many people question if cinema can influence life 

Well, it did mine 

Tamil cinema has been the bane of my romantic life.. 

Non-existent romantic life because I was terrified of getting into one.. 

The movies I grew up watching from the 80s, 90s, 2000s all showed “love” as this possessive, toxic, male chauvinistic expression of feelings.. 

Where merely conveying the connection by stealing glances at each other was called “love”

Where once you showed interest back, it was taken as commitment leading to marriage 

And the female was typically shamed if she didn’t continue any further than that.. 

She was slut-shamed if she then became interested in someone else 

So I was terrified 

Terrified of even giving glances lest I be forced to be bound to that person in commitment without knowing them fully well

I questioned all along how “love” can develop with a mere glance – it just didn’t make sense to me 

Tamil cinema never showed that this was just an initial attraction 

That attraction is not love and need not lead to commitment 

So, I suppressed my attractions in fear of being stuck with the wrong person 

Tamil cinema didn’t teach me that I have the agency to choose the person to love and to leave the person when things don’t work out.. 

It taught me that it was the duty of a lover to stay with their lover no matter the circumstance because that is pure “kadhal” 

This made me question my own level of “commitment and sacrifice” possible to stay with the lover no matter what they do 

So I never ventured into one for a long time

Why did cinema influence me so much? 

I don’t have an answer

Maybe because I saw many similarities between cinema and the society around me

Maybe “love marriage” was not common in the society I was in 

And cinema was the main reference for how lovers are 

Maybe I didn’t have the courage back then to not care what the society thought about me

Took me many years to finally experience love 

And when I finally did, it was with an abusive person

What a glorious timing, because Arjun Reddy came out at that time 

And said that in passionate true love, abuse is normal

I went into guilt and doubt whether it would be wrong to leave the person I love

Thankfully a sane friend of mine said I need not tolerate it

It doesn’t make me a bad person 

Since then, I have explored and realized the true meaning of love 

Love is beyond a feeling

It is an act of empowering each other to experience our fullest selves 

Abuse cannot co-exist with love 

And we do not “owe” love to anybody 

With this newfound meaning of love, I was so glad to watch the Tamil movie Lover

I was so glad that times and tunes have changed 

The movie calls out abuse as abuse and not love 

I was rejoicing, a little too much that the current younger generation will not be misguided by cinema anymore 

Until I reached the very end of the movie 

And it was a slap on my face 

Because the boyfriend rides away almost heroically after their final breakup 

He is never shown to understand why his actions were abusive 

Never sincerely apologizes to the girl that he was abusive

But the girl is left crying and apologizing for calling out his abuse 

I was left fuming after the climax 

Tamil cinema still has some way to go