Vidukathai

Anandhi is a happy go lucky, bold college going 17-year-old girl. She lives with her widowed father Doctor Ramanadhan who is a psychiatrist with a history of heart ailment and has suffered heart attack twice. Her father has brought her up to be very thoughtful, mature and forward thinking unlike a typical shy and timid woman of her age back in those times. She gets a lot of attention and proposals from other boys from her college which she rejects citing how kiddish and immature their infatuation is towards her. Once in a while she and her father are visited by their family friends Manasatchi and another fellow doctor Ilango.

One day, her father suffers a severe cardiac arrest and passes away leaving Anandhi orphaned. Despite her loss, Anandhi remains strong and continues to handle her dad's funeral and continues with her studies. Her friends and college professors are surprised as she returned to study with a straight face without showing any emotional breakdown for her loss. Manasatchi visits her, consoles and helps her get through the emotional stagnation and sadness of her fathers loss.

Almost after a month of her father's loss, Anandhi is visited by Neelakandan (Prakash Raj), an ex-Army man in his early 40s and single. He reminds Anandhi that he had a brief chat with her father a month ago while her father was looking for a tenant in their out-house. Anandhi conveys her father's loss and lets Neelakandan stay at their out-house as a tenant. As time goes on, Neelakandan and Anandhi get very friendly and spend a lot of time shopping, playing and going out to restaurants and theatres. Anandhi thinks through their relationship and decides to marry Neelakandan. Neelakadan gets surprised over her decision especially because of the age difference. Eventually she convinces him and they both decide to marry with Manasatchi and Dr. Ilango as witnesses.

Both of them go to Goa for their Honeymoon and Neelakandan encourages her to continue her studies. Her wedding comes off as a big surprise to her college mates and professors who start advising her against the decision and try to distance away from her. Anandhi then decides to quit her studies and remain a home maker while Neelakandan finds a job as a security guard in a factory owned by Vijayan, who is also in his early 50s and apparently married a very young women in early 20s. As Neelakandan and Anandhi visit a jewellery shop, a fellow customer mistakes them to be father and daughter which disappoints Neelakandan. Eventually, Anandhi's class mate back from her college pays her a visit to check if she is living a happily married life despite marrying someone with huge age gap. Anandhi introduces him to her husband referring him to be one of the people who proposed to her back in her college days which causes Neelakandan to develop a complex of their age gap.

Vijayan also shares his story with Neelakandan about how he caught his wife cheating with one of his employees whom he tried to fire framing him of theft to avoid the disgrace. Neelakandan gets worried more about the similar situation with his wife and the age gap. He tries to go away from her hoping she would move on and gets married to someone younger of her age and live happily. He starts avoiding Anandhi and treats her with contempt and anger. He also tries to coerce with her former college friend hoping that he can persuade her to marry him. As the complex builds up - they decide to visit Dr. Ilango for consultation and that is when Anandhi realises the true problem. On the way back to her home, Neelakandan abandons her on the way reaching home early hoping to leave her without notice. But Anandi eventually arrives and maturely handles the situation explaining to him that she just loves Neelakandan and the age gap isn't a problem for them at all.

• Prakash Raj as Neelakandan
• Neena as Anandhi
• Manivannan
• Janagaraj
• Vijayan
• Balu Anand
• Suthangan
• Ramji
• Jegadeesh
• Akash

Neena, a former child actress in Keladi Kannmanii (1991), was selected for the lead role in Vidukathai when she was still at school and had to work on her schedules around exams.[1] The production of the film was hampered by the FEFSI strike of 1997 and the makers had to postpone the venture from its original scheduled release date of June 1997.[2] Subbu Panchu, son of producer Panchu Arunachalam worked as a dance choreographer for the film.[3]

The soundtrack was composed by Deva.[4]

Vidukathai was released on 30 October 1997.[5] K. N. Vijiyan of New Straits Times praised the film's plot and the performances of lead actors.[6] Ji of Kalki wrote Agathiyan who kept the masala elements away has also kept aside the idea of keeping the message clear and complete which are major obstacles to the flow to the film, he however praised the performances of Prakash Raj, Neena, Janagaraj and Manivannan but felt whether audience could able to understand the concept and psychology of this film.[7]

• Vidukathai at IMDb