96

IMDb: 8.5/10

’96 is a 2018 Indian Tamil-language romantic drama film written and directed by C. Premkumar, starring Vijay Sethupathi and Trisha in lead roles. The film revolves around, two high school sweethearts from the batch 1996 who meet at a reunion, 22 years after they parted. Bagavathi Perumal, Devadarshini and Aadukalam Murugadoss appear in supporting roles. Produced by S. Nanthagopal of Madras Enterprises, the film was distributed by Lalit Kumar under his banner Seven Screen Studio. Principal photography commenced on 12 June 2017 at Kumbakonam.

The cinematography was handled by Mahendiran Jayaraju and N. Shanmuga Sundaram and editing was handled by R. Govindaraju, while the costumes were designed by Subhashree Karthik Vijay, in which the yellow kurta outfit designed for Trisha's character became popular. The music and background score of the film was composed by Govind Vasantha, and the lyrics for the songs were written by Karthik Netha and Umadevi. The soundtrack album received applause from critics and it was considered as one of the best soundtracks of the year.

'96 was released worldwide on 4 October 2018 and performed well at the box office. The film won several accolades at several nominations. At the 2018 Filmfare Awards South, the film won five awards, including Best Actor and Best Actress. Trisha won two awards for Best Actress at two nominations, from Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards and Norway Tamil Film Festival Awards. The film was nominated for several categories at Edison Awards but did not receive a win. The film was remade by Preetham Gubbi in Kannada as 99 (2019), and by Premkumar himself in Telugu as Jaanu (2020).

Ramachandran aka Ram (Vijay Sethupathi) is a travel photographer. He visits his high school and is overcome by memories. So, a reunion is arranged through their school WhatsApp group. At the reunion, his friends Murali (Bagavathi Perumal), Subhashini (Devadarshini) and Sathish (Aadukalam Murugadoss) catch up with him. Murali hesitantly mentions that Jaanu (Ram's childhood sweetheart) is coming from Singapore.

In 1996, Ram and Jaanu have been friends and classmates in 10th grade. Jaanu is a talented singer. Ram develops a love for Jaanu and she reciprocates. Once their board exams are over, they have a moment with each other where Jaanu asks him not to forget her until they meet again after the holidays.

Jaanu (Trisha) arrives at the reunion and searches for Ram. When Subha points Ram's location to her, Jaanu walks towards him. She reminisces about the first day of 11th grade when she eagerly awaits Ram's arrival to the classroom, but he doesn't show up. She finds that Ram has left the school because his father had financial difficulties and his family relocated to Madras overnight. Jaanu is inconsolable and pines for Ram until she completes school.

Ram and Jaanu finally meet and find it uncomfortable to interact with each other, but gradually get along. Their friends talk about Jaanu's married life in Singapore and disclose that Ram is still single and has not moved on. After the reunion party, both go out on a drive. Jaanu reveals how she could not forget Ram and would have traded anything just to have met him once back then. She narrates how circumstances forced her to marry someone else. Then, Ram asks Jaanu if she really does not remember the day he came to her college to meet her. Ram says that he and Murali waited in front of Jaanu's college to meet her and passed on a message to a student. Surprisingly, Jaanu refused to meet Ram and forbade him to contact her again. He returned sadly and never tried to meet her since then. Jaanu is devastated listening to this and reveals that she never saw them at her college and thought it was her stalker who was troubling her. Ram tells that except for the mistake of assuming that she hated him, he knew everything about her life. He also tells about seeing her from afar at her wedding. Jaanu is heartbroken because she felt his presence and expected him to come for her until the last minute. Both feel sad about their misfortune and finally, come to terms with everything that happened in their lives. Jaanu expresses her desire to spend the final few hours with Ram before she catches the flight back home.

They go out into the city and then to a restaurant and catch up on more memories. There, they meet Ram's photography students who assume Jaanu is his wife and request her to share their story. Jaanu obliges and narrates an improvised version of the time when Ram tried to meet Jaanu at her college. She tells about how they finally met and made up and have been together ever since and got married. Ram feels awkward but tries his best to play along. The students leave and Ram and Jaanu get wet in the rain. So he asks her to visit his apartment to freshen up.

At his apartment, Jaanu is visibly upset that Ram does not have a love life and requests him to move on and get married and have a family. She finally sings Ram's favourite song for him, a song that she had purposefully avoided singing in school in spite of his repeated requests. Ram shows Jaanu a collection of their old memories like love poems, dried flowers, and their school uniforms. They realize that time is running out and go back to Jaanu's hotel to get ready for her flight in a few hours. Jaanu is sad knowing that she will leave Chennai and Ram very soon. At the airport, Ram escorts her to the boarding gate and they bid a teary farewell. Jaanu then gets into the flight and leaves.

Back at his home, Ram finds Jaanu's clothes that he had put to dry the previous night. He folds them neatly, puts them along with his treasured collection of school memories, and shuts the suitcase and the screen cuts to black.

'96 was later on remade in Kannada by Preetham Gubbi as 99 (2019),[83] and in Telugu by C. Premkumar as Jaanu (2020).

all sources: Wikipedia

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