Anbil Avan: Ashok Selvan picks his own comeback

Two and a half years is a long silence for an actor coming off Por Thozhil and Blue Star, and Ashok Selvan has finally broken his, if you set aside a cameo in Dharani Rasendran’s war drama. His next film has a name, Anbil Avan, along with a first look and a title teaser, and the way it came together says plenty: offers piled up after those two films, and the one he chose is the one he is producing himself. Happy High Pictures, the banner he runs with his sister Abinaya Selvam, mounts it with Ayngaran International, and the film is being readied for a September theatrical release.

Debutant R. Kaarthikeyan directs, from a story written by Por Thozhil director Vignesh Raja, and Ashok’s reasoning for picking it is the kind of thing actors rarely say out loud. “As a story, plenty of films like this have come before. Cinema has changed. It is the screenplay, the style of telling, and the experience it gives you in a theatre that matter now. I say this with full confidence: the screenplay and the theatrical experience here will feel new,” he said. His one-line for the film is simpler: how far will a man travel for love. “Love makes a genius a fool, and an ordinary man an achiever. The screenplay is built to reflect exactly that. Anbil Avan will stand and speak.”

The loudest claim of the day, though, was for the composer. Anbil Avan has Govind Vasantha, who scored Gentlewoman, on song and score, and Ashok framed it as the film’s spine. “This is Govind Vasantha’s concert. The music of this film will be spoken about alongside 96,” he said. For a film sold as a beautiful love story built for the big screen, that is the comparison to live up to, and the director doubled down by promising the year’s best album.

Preity Mukhundhan, who plays the female lead, called the film the one she has been waiting a long time for, and thanked her co-star for an unusual reason: as producer, he handed the heroine a larger share of the film than heroines usually get. Ashok returned the compliment, saying everyone who has seen the film so far has walked out praising her performance. Kaarthikeyan says that is by design. His film is about dreams, specifically the dreams of women, the chasing, the struggle and the price of them, told with feeling and told through a love story. “Every woman walking out of this film will say, this is what a boyfriend should be, this is what a husband should be,” he said.

For Happy High Pictures this is the second production, and the first since Oh My Kadavule six years ago. “We waited patiently for a good story after Oh My Kadavule. When Vignesh Raja told us this one, all of us liked it instantly,” Abinaya Selvam said, adding that the team is now pushing to finish all work in time for the September window. Gowtham Rajendran shoots the film, R.K. Selva edits, and Manikandan Srinivasan handles production design.

The teaser is out, the album is loading, and the date to watch is September.