Love Today is a 1997 Tamil romantic drama film written and directed by Balasekaran, who made his debut with the venture. This film features Vijay and Suvalakshmi in the lead roles while Manthra, Raghuvaran, Karan and Bindu Panicker all play other supporting roles. The film opened to positive reviews from critics and did well at the box office. It was also dubbed in Hindi as Dil Ki Dagar in 2013. It was remade in Telugu as Suswagatham , in Kannada as Majnu and in Hindi as Kya Yehi Pyaar Hai.
Ganesh (Vijay) is a college graduate who lives with his father Chandrasekhar (Raghuvaran), a doctor. Chandrasekhar is easygoing and pampers his son with whatever he wants. Sandhya (Suvalakshmi) is the daughter of a very strict police officer Vasudevan (Rajan P. Dev), who is always suspicious that she would have a love affair. Sandhya makes up her mind that she would never fall in love, and her ambition is to get a gold medal in her college degree. One day, Ganesh spots Sandhya and falls in love with her at first sight. Even though Sandhya catches a good glimpse of him, she tells her friend Fathima she likes no one. Ganesh goes to the bus stop everyday to see Sandhya. He tries to get advice from his friends Ravi (Sriman) and Peter (Karan) to convince Sandhya to marry him. Their advice goes in vain as she does not care about him. She confronts Ganesh one day and tells him not to waste his time on her.
Ganesh gets hold of Sandhya’s friend Preethi (Manthra), and she tries to talk to Sandhya, but she is unmovable. Vasudevan becomes suspicious of Ganesh and Sandhya and uses physical force on Ganesh. He also verbally abuses Sandhya, though she tries to explain her innocence. Sandhya is forced to leave town because of this. Ganesh finds her whereabouts and leaves his father to go out of town and find her. As he is trying to find her, Chandrasekhar has an accident and passes away. His friends desperately try to find his whereabouts but cannot trace him. Peter ends up performing Chandrasekhar’s last rites. Ganesh arrives and gets heartbroken that he could not even perform his father’s cremation.
At this point, Sandhya reveals her feelings for Ganesh, tells him that she loves him, and says she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. However, he rejects her feelings and tells her he has lost everything because of love and he did not have a chance to see his father’s grave. The next day, Sandhya is found to be standing at the bus stop, waiting for Ganesh to come. Meanwhile, Ganesh takes the recommendation that his father had written for him before his death and goes for his first interview.
Directed by Balasekaran
Produced by R. B. Choudary
Written by Balasekaran
Starring Vijay, Suvalakshmi, Manthra, Raghuvaran
Music by Shiva
Cinematography Vijay Gopal
Edited by V. Jaishanker
Production Super Good Films
Distributed by Super Good Films
Release date 9 May 1997
Running time 151 minutes
Country India
Language Tamil
Visitor Rating: 4 Stars