Love Always Series Review
Regret. Indian arranged marriages are a concept that, on paper, should make absolutely no sense in a society. What do you mean when you say two strangers are suddenly asked to marry each other just because the elders in their respective families decided it was the right thing? How does "forever" make sense when you don't even know your prospective partner's favorite colour? Such is the system, and even today, our Indian society continues to swear by it because why repair something that isn't broken? Yes, some arranged marriages seem like a dream come true, but there are enough examples that lay bare the broken, flawed, and limiting factors of the system. In director Madhumita's Love Always, we see a marriage that looks dreamy from the outside and dilapidated from the inside. But what happens when life, and a lot of magic, lets you turn regret into restoration? Basically, Love Always understands that ‘love’ is special, but questions whether ‘always’ should be taken for granted.
Director: Madhumita
Cast: Jayasudha, Jayaprakash, Gouri Kishan, Ramzan Muhammed, Suraj
Streamer: JioHotstar
Love Always opens like the pilot episode of Modern Family. It introduces the various members of a seemingly well-off family. We first meet the elder son, Gautham (Pradeep Palli), his wife, Rajini (Mythili Sathyajith), their college-going daughter, Deepika (Dimple), and their son, Raghu. Gautham and Rajini are romantics at heart, even in their 40s, and aren’t afraid to give each other a dressing-down when needed. Although they aren't the protagonists, the series doesn’t treat them as mere plot devices; it treats them as living, breathing characters. The same holds true for the younger son, Vignesh (Suraj), an assistant professor at the law college central to the plot. He struggles with his parents and becomes a rebel without a cause because he believes it is the only way to make others feel the pain he is going through. He has a failed romantic relationship because he prefers running away from problems rather than resolving them through dialogue. Finally, we meet the sexagenarian couple—Manjula (Jayasudha) and Kannan (Jayaprakash)—whose shashtipoorthi wedding plans have brought them all to the table. All hell breaks loose when Manjula, instead of renewing vows as is in vogue, decides to ask for divorce. If Love Always were a drama about family dynamics, this would be the starting point for exploring domestic tiffs and how the system stacks the odds against one person or the other. But Madhumita’s Love Always is a fantasy comedy that wants you to forget logic. The fantasy element comes through an immortal sorcerer, his powerful medallion, a love story spanning the ages, and a trick that turns the couple into their 20-year-old selves, played by Gouri Kishan and Ramzan Muhammed. From there, Love Always becomes a breezy exploration of what it means to be in love, what it means to be married, and why the two are completely different beasts.
Over the next seven episodes, we see how the two sets of Manjula and Kannan work to resolve their personal problems and finally cater to the deepest desires their adulthood took away. Around them, their family members find themselves in their own messes. Even the sorcerer and his familiar apprentice have their own machinations. And Madhumita treats this adaptation of the Korean webtoon Here We Go Again with refreshing levity. It's adorable how Crazy Mohan-isms and even Mani Ratnam-esque dialogues find their way into Love Always. This works because it uses them sparingly and with care, rather than bombarding us with the same. This approach runs throughout the series, showing tremendous restraint in treating Love Always as a sitcom rather than a madcap comedy, despite the premise allowing it. Of course, the madcap aspect comes through in the season finale, but Madhumita doesn’t crowd the series and keeps the focus on the Manjulas and Kannans.
That's both the good and not-so-good aspect of the series. It makes an excellent point about why emotional neglect is a malady in marriages, but when they turn into their younger selves, it shows how they are physically attracted to each other. It's good entertainment, but it also makes you assume they were more compatible as youngsters and that things went awry over time. Later, with the introduction of Meera (Maya Krishnan), we see how the marriage was doomed from the start. Similarly, Kannan is selfish in both versions, and just a mere ‘I will stand up for my wife’ doesn’t absolve him of the underlying issues. He is with her because he is married to her, not because he is in love with her. She is with him for the same reasons, and the series tries to paint them in a different light when they're younger. Young Kannan, who couldn’t pursue law because of his father’s disapproval, wants to go to law school and live his dream. What does the young Manjula want to do? She wants to go to the same college and spend more time with her estranged son, who is a professor there. Why should Manjula be a mom even when she is young, when Kannan is allowed to be a man with dreams? Again, it isn’t wrong to want to be a mom, but it makes you wonder if there isn’t more to her. She is a steadfast woman who realises that even 40 years into the marriage, it isn’t too late to ask for a separation. But at every step, we are shown justifications for everything Kannan does. While it is understandable that the series doesn’t want to paint anyone as bad or evil, treating Kannan with kid gloves takes the sheen off Manjula’s struggles.
Nevertheless, the series still wins us over and is a refreshing addition to the Tamil OTT space. It constantly makes us smile thanks to its timely interjections of humour, and the way the wonderful ensemble plays off each other. Gouri stands out as the younger Manjula, who conveys subtle nuances with consummate ease. Through her eyes and subtle shifts in body language, she differentiates her feelings toward Kannan, Vignesh, and a young classmate who is infatuated with her. Jayasudha is not just effective in the dramatic sequences, but a hoot when things take a bizarre turn. Jayaprakash and Ramzan also nail the comic timing and keep things moving smoothly. Be it Suraj’s oscillation between regret and incredulity, Maya’s mischievous demanour, Mythili’s straight-faced humour and no-nonsense attitude, or Pradeep’s delivery of frustration and guilt, and Dimple’s cavalier behaviour, the actors do a competent job of binding together the whimsical with the emotional core of the series.
As the series galloped to its crowded finish, the smiles and laughs also prompted introspection about how love and marriage aren’t that different now compared to the past. In fact, it is as complicated as it was before, despite the evolution of tools that make things easier. But as we watch the younger Manjula and Kannan figure out what they need from each other, and themselves, and the older Manjula and Kannan wonder whether things would have been different, it makes you wonder something even more fundamental: Would it still be love if everything changed? But as they say in the series, ‘No logic, only magic…’ and the beauty of the magic lies in not understanding how things happened.
