Oh Manapenne! (Eng: Oh Dear Bride!) is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language romantic comedy film directed by Kaarthikk Sundar in his directorial debut and written by Deepak Sundarrajan. A remake of the Telugu film Pelli Choopulu (2016), it stars Harish Kalyan and Priya Bhavani Shankar as a boy and girl who meet during a matchmaking event. How their aspirations bring them together forms the rest of the story.
Karthik is a guy who completes his B.E by clearing his subjects for almost five years, but he is also lazy and incapable of doing any work. His dream is to become a chef and open a restaurant, but he doesn’t get any support from his father. Shruthi is a very focused girl who works hard to fulfil her dreams of going to Australia. However, her father shows no interest, as she is a girl and he wanted a boy instead. When both of them meet at the matchmaking event, her younger cousin, Barath, accidentally locks the door which jams very often and they get stuck eventually. To pass time, they talk about their past.
Shruthi reveals that she was in love with a man named Arjun. They both wanted to start a food truck business. Arjun went to Bangalore to talk with his father about their love and business. Meanwhile, Shruthi started her plan eagerly, and was ready to surprise Arjun by buying the truck. But things went wrong and Arjun did not come back, overpowered by greed of getting dowry. Shruthi and her father waited for him but when they realised Arjun wasn’t coming back, her father decided to get her married to someone else.
On his turn, Karthik reveals that he was unemployed and always went out with his two friends Sathya and Faizal. So Karthik and his friends, make cooking videos, as he is passionate about cooking. But it wasn’t profitable enough. So they plan to make prank videos and were caught red-handed by Karthik’s father, which ended their plan.
It is then revealed, after the door was fixed, that Karthik came to the wrong address for his matchmaking event. Later, Karthik goes to his actual matchmaking event, which was with a rich family. Meanwhile, Shruthi tells the guy coming to her matchmaking event that she’s not interested in the marriage. The family of Karthik’s bride wanted him to be able to run a business, so he and Shruthi decide to operate the food truck themselves, with Karthik as the chef, and Shruthi in charge of the business side of things. At first, they face many difficulties, mainly because of Karthik and his friends’ laziness as well as fighting with Shruthi and giving up the food truck.
Later, Karthik visits Shruthi’s house and informs her father that he should be proud to have such a responsible daughter. He also claims that if he ever gets a son like him, that he would wish to have a daughter like Shruthi and insists him to let her pursue her dreams. Because of this, Shruthi understands the good nature of Karthik and later convinces Karthi’s father that he is a talented cook by cooking them Karthik’s recipe. Then they kickstart their business with the support from both their parents. After this, their food truck becomes a smashing success. In the process, they fall in love without realising it, but both of them are engaged to other people, so they drift apart. After realising they love each other, they come back together through a radio show organised by Shruthi’s friend Ramya. With the support of their family and friends, Karthik and Shruthi reunite successfully.
Directed by Kaarthikk Sundar
Based on Pelli Choopulu by Tharun Bhascker
Produced by Satyanarayana Koneru & Ramesh Varma Penmesta
Starring Harish Kalyan, Priya Bhavani Shankar
Cinematography Krishnan Vasant
Edited by Kripakaran
Music by Vishal Chandrashekhar
Production A Studios LLP, A Havish Production, SP Cinemas, Madhav Media & Third Eye Entertainment
Distributed by Disney+ Hotstar
Release date 22 October 2021
Country India
Language Tamil
Visitor Rating: 3 Stars