Unlike many of the other films Vijay Sethupathi has starred in, 96 is a fairly simple story about high school sweethearts meeting each other again after two decades. Here, Vijay Sethupathi has put aside the “movie star” and simply embodied a character.
The film happened because of director Prem Kumar. When he came up with a beautiful, nostalgia-invoking love story about two high school sweethearts who meet after 22 years at a school reunion and what happens over a night, I fell in love with the script. Prem was the cameraman of one of my early critically acclaimed films Naduvila Konjam Pakkatha Kannom. When he came (to me) with the script, I insisted he directs it to keep the story original and not to water it down with commercial cinema clichés. The film’s music, by a young Govind Vasantha, has already gone viral. Honestly irrespective of how it does at the box-office, I loved doing 96 The Movie.
96 is now out in Malaysian cinemas. The film stars Vijay Sethupathi and Trisha, and is helmed by debutant director Prem Kumar, with music by Govind Menon.
