Youth is a 2002 Tamil film directed by Vincent Selva, which is a remake of the Telugu film, Chiru Navvuto (2000). Vijay and Shaheen Khan appeared in the lead roles while Yugendran, Vivek, Manivannan and Sindhu Menon play other pivotal characters. Youth opened to highly positive reviews. The movie was dubbed in Telugu and in Hindi with the same title.
On his wedding day, Shiva (Vijay) discovers that his cousin and bride, Aruna, has run away because she does not want to marry a cook. But he takes it lightly and moves to Chennai with the girl’s brother (Shyam Ganesh) to look for a job. One night, he saves Sandya from some goons. In gratitude, she kisses him. Shiva starts to fall in love with Sandya. After several occasions where they bumped into each other, Shiva harbours hope that she too reciprocates his affections.
However at Sandya’s birthday party, she announces her engagement to computer engineer, Pratap (Yugendran). Shiva is devastated at the news and leaves the room quietly. Sandya finds him standing alone at the swimming pool. She asks him about his impression of Pratap and is shocked when Shiva reveals to her that he loves her. Sandya declares that she only feels friendship towards him and tells him to stop loving her.
After receiving a telephone call, Shiva goes to the police station and finds Aruna. She had eloped to be with her lover. However, he later abandoned her and left her penniless. With no one to turn to, Aruna attempted suicide. Shiva takes her back home to take care of her. Aruna’s brother was still angry and calls up their parents. Shiva speaks up for Aruna and gets the family to forgive her. Before returning to the village, Aruna meets Pratap and discovers that Sandya’s fiance is actually the lover who abandoned her.
On the eve of Sandya’s wedding, she finally understands that she loves Shiva and tells her father (Manivannan) that she does not want to marry Pratap. Her father refuses to cancel the wedding and gives Shiva a cheque for 10 million to get the latter to leave Sandya. Sandya runs away on her wedding day to look for Shiva and confesses to him that she loves him too. She wants to elope with Shiva but he brings her back to the wedding venue.
Before the ceremony starts, he calls Pratap into a room and closes the door. When the door reopens, Shiva and Pratap had changed clothes. Shiva is now in the groom’s attire while Pratap is in ordinary clothes. Shiva marries Sandya in the end. On their wedding night, Shiva reveals to Sandya what happened between Pratap and him in the room.
Directed by Vincent Selva
Produced by Poornachandra Rao
Written by Prasanna Kumar (dialogues)
Story by Trivikram Srinivas
Starring Vijay, Shaheen Khan, Vivek, Yugendran
Music by Mani Sharma
Cinematography Natarajan Subramaniam
Edited by V. T. Vijayan
Distributed by Lakshmi Productions
Release dates 19 July 2002
Running time 168 minutes
Country India
Language Tamil
