Naanum Single Thaan

"Naanum Single Thaan" is a 2021 Tamil romantic comedy film written and directed by R. Gopi and produced by Jayakumar of Three is a Company. Gethu Dinesh, Deepti Sati, and Motta Rajendran are the lead actors in this film that attempts to portray modern relationships but in a defective and backward manner that undermines its genre and message.

Udhay (Dinesh) is a tattooed boy who has got "Virgin Boy" and the names of actresses Trisha and Nayanthara tattooed on his body, reflecting his crush obsession and celeb crushes. With his group of equally quirky '90s kids' friends, he meets Swetha (Deepti Sati), a no-nonsense, career-orientated woman. Udhay forms a sudden crush on her and starts following her around, but Swetha explicitly informs him that she has no interest in him. Instead of heeding her choice, Udhay and his friends opt for stalking and manipulation in the name of love.

The film incessantly undermines women's agency by depicting Udhay's incessant harassment as charming persistence. Swetha is a device character who, after enduring some privacy intrusions like the scene in which Udhay tells her that he has traded sperm samples while undergoing an IVF procedure, spontaneously falls in love with him. This farcical plot development not only falls short of logical scrutiny but also grossly neglects moral and ethical limits.

The movie reinforces centuries of poisonous tropes: from glorifying male entitlement and dismissing consent to demonizing feminism as a party pooper to romanticising. Scenes where Udhay shoves a kiss on Swetha without consent, stalks her to London, gets her sacked, and deceives her family are justified in the name of "true love." The film shamelessly assumes that a woman's professional and personal boundaries do not exist if a man is persistent.

Naanum Single Thaan is more of a cautionary book about how not to write women and love on the screen rather than a romantic comedy.