Aneethi

Aneethi (transl. Injustice) is a 2023 Indian Tamil-language romantic psychological thriller film written and directed by Vasanthabalan. It is produced by Vasanthabalan himself, V M. Krishna Kumar, Murugan Gnanavel and Varadharajan Manickam under the banner of Urban Boyz Studios. The film stars Arjun Das and Dushara Vijayan in the lead roles.

The film was announced in February 2021, under the tentative title Production No.1, as it is the production banner's maiden production, while the title of the film was revealed in September. Principal photography commenced in February 2021 and wrapped in May 2022. The music is composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, while the cinematography and editing are handled by A. M. Edwin Sakay and Ravikumar M, respectively.

Aneethi was released theatrically on 21 July 2023 and received positive reviews from critics and became a sleeper hit at the box-office.

Plot
The film starts with Thirumeni going into a house holding a pickaxe and searching for Subbu.

A year earlier: Thiru works as a food delivery boy at Meal Monkey. He stays in a shared room with his friend Pothi and roommate Bhaskar. When Thiru goes to deliver food, a customer asks him to go to the 13th floor. He goes there by walking upstairs, but the customer argues with him for not having change for 2,000₹. At that moment, Thiru kills the customer with a sangu.

The next morning, Thiru sees a chocolate advertisement on TV. Seeing this, he becomes furious and breaks the TV. Bhaskar scolds him for doing this. Later, it is revealed that Thiru has OCD. He gets treated by a psychiatrist. Also, the 13th floor customer was not killed; Thiru hallucinated. After finishing his session with the psychiatrist, Thiru leaves the hospital.

Later that day, when Thiru enters the room, Pothi and Bhaskar ask him about being treated in a mental health hospital. He tells them that nowadays, he feels like killing whoever he sees. Pothi asks him if he has ever wanted to kill him, and Thiru replies that he has killed him 100 times in his imagination. Bhaskar asks the same question to Thiru, and he replies that he has killed him 1,000 times. A frightened Pothi and Bhaskar sleep outside of the room.

Afterward, Thiru's Meal Monkey account gets blocked by the manager due to low ratings. Pothi requests the manager to give Thiru one last chance. One night, while Thiru is delivering food, he talks with a girl, Subbu, but cannot see her because she did not open the gate. He likes her, so he starts to deliver the food she orders every day. In order to see Subbu's face, he packs the food in a big parcel so she will open the gate and he can see her, which works out. Later, Thiru follows Subbu, who works as a maid for Mangayarkarasi. He leaves the shopping store once she gets scolded and beaten by Mangayarkarasi.

Later, after receiving her food, Subbu asks Thiru to forgive her for not telling him that she is a maid. He tells her that he knows that she is a maid before following her to the shopping store. Then she opened the gate, and they both became lovers. After a few days, when Subbu gets out of the house, Mangayarkarasi checks her bag and then her body. A frustrated Subbu cries and lifts her clothes. Mangayarkarasi beats Subbu, and Thiru sees this through the window. While going to her house, he says that he wants to kill Mangayarkarasi.

Later that day, while talking about Subbu's family issues, Thiru and Subbu hugged, which is seen by Mangayarkarasi. They start arguing, and Thiru leaves. Later that night, Subbu calls him, and they both take Mangayarkarasi to the hospital, but she is already dead. Subbu tries to call Mangayarkarasi's son Aji, but he does not pick up the call, so they put the dead body in a private mortuary and use Mangayarkarasi's debit card for the expenses.

Later, Pothi meets with an accident, and Thiru rescued him and took him to a private hospital. He asked for Mangayarkarasi's debit card to pay the bill and told Subbu he would return the money. Subbu refuses to give the debit card, so Thiru cuts the phone call, and an auto driver helps him pay the bill. The next day, she says that her brother stole the card and swiped two lakhs. They decide to arrange the money, so they ask people they know for loans, but no one helps. Aji calls Subbu and asks why she called him. She lies, saying that Mangayarkarasi wanted to talk to him.

Later, Thiru arranges for a mimicry artist to talk with Mangayarkarasi's daughter Anitha. The mimicry artist talks like Mangayarkarasi, and Anitha tells her that she has a surprise gift for her, so she asks Subbu to open the gate. After opening the gate, Subbu was frightened because it was Anitha and Aji, and their families had come here to see Mangayarkarasi. Anitha and Aji find that their mother is dead, and they start beating Subbu and Thiru. They see their mother's dead body, and it is confirmed that she died due to poisoning. Thiru and Subbu were arrested by the police. Anitha goes to the police station and starts to shoot them with her gun, but they escape. Anitha's uncle bribed the police to cover the incident.

The police start investigating by beating both Thiru and Subbu. After the inspector manipulates Subbu by telling her that Thiru may have killed Mangayarkarasi, Subbu recollects the conversation and Thiru's mental illness, so she concludes he must be the killer and yells to Thiru why he killed Mangayarkarasi. Later, the police starts torturing Thiru to convict him. The police goes to Thiru's room and inform Bhaskar that Thiru has killed an old lady. They find the note of Thiru, in which it is written many times that the taste of chocolate is bitter.

Many years ago: Thiru and his father lived happily. His father works in a small store where his salary is 500₹, but the store owner will give only 300₹. One day, Thiru asked his father to buy him chocolate, which costs 50₹. His father promises to buy it on Thiru's birthday. Unfortunately, the father was beaten up and humiliated by the store owner and his employer. The owner makes a fake complaint to the police that Thiru's father tried to steal the money, so the police beats him up. Later that night, Thiru's father returns home and gives his son the chocolate, which was covered by his blood. Seeing his, Thiru tells him that he does not want the chocolate and only wants his father. That night, while sleeping, Thiru's father dies of suffocation. After a few days, Thiru hallucinates throwing a stone at the store owner's face, but he did not actually throw one.

In the present: Thiru declares that he is the one who killed Mangayarkarasi while being filmed by police. The cameraman finds a letter that was written by Mangayarkarasi. It reveals that she killed herself by consuming sleeping pills because Aji and Anitha did not care about her. After this, Subbu and Thiru get released from prison. Subbu asks Thiru to forgive her, but he walks away.

Anitha's uncle gives four lakhs to Subbu's father so he can let her go with them to America and work as a waitress in their hotel. Thiru goes to his room, where he cannot find the key, and his belongings are thrown out. He finds his father's photo out of the room, which was damaged due to rain. Subbu realizes that Aji and Anitha want to get her signature because Mangayarkarasi has registered the house in her name. She leaves the place because she does not want to go to America. Bhaskar arrives at the room, where he finds that the lock has been broken. As he enters the room, he finds Thiru taking a bath without locking the bathroom.

At the same time, the Meal Monkey employees protested against the layoff. Subbu arrives at the Meal Monkey office to find Thiru but cannot find him and leaves. After finishing his bath, Thiru asks Bhaskar to forgive him for breaking the lock, and he cries because the photo of his father has been damaged. He leaves, saying that he has vacated the room. After he leaves, it was shown that Bhaskar was killed after the TV hit his head. Thiru takes Bhaskar's bike, rides it to the Meal Monkey office, and kills the company owner. Anitha and Aji find Subbu, take her to their home, and start torturing her. When Thiru arrives there, he gets more aggressive, seeing Subbu kneeling and begging to let her go, which he connects to his father. He beats and kills Aji, Anitha, and their uncle.

Finally, Thiru confronts Subbu, where she kneels, begs, and asks him to kill her. She says that she is the reason for his becoming a killer. He drops the axe, kisses her hands, and says that he loves her hands very much and will always love them. He says that those who kneel and ask for an apology should be forgiven. If they did not forgive, then they were not humans but beasts. If the store owner forgives his father, his life may be different and happier.

Then, when Thiru opens the gate, he has a hallucination where he sees his father on a bicycle and asks him why his clothes are dirty. Thiru replies that it is just for play. Thiru's father tells his son that the latter's name (Thiru) means pure, both mentally and physically.

Development
In early January 2021, Vasanthabalan was reported to collaborate with Arjun Das for his next directional. An official confirmation was made on 12 February. The film would be produced by Vasanthabalan himself and his school friends under Urban Boyz Studio, in their maiden production, with a production budget of inr 50000000.

The day after the confirmation, Dushara Vijayan was announced to play the lead female role. During an interview, she stated "While I was shooting for Ranjith's film Sarpatta Parambarai (2021), Vasantabalan sir had come to see Shankar sir, who was shooting for Indian 2 at a spot nearby. He saw me and asked me to come to the office. I had a look test with Arjun and got the role."

G. V. Prakash Kumar, who made his composition debut through Vasanthabalan's directional film Veyil (2006), was announced to compose the score.

A muhurat puja was held on 18 February in Chennai. Stills shared by the makers confirmed that the cinematography and editing would be handled by A. M. Edwin Sakay and Ravikumar M, respectively, as they were present at the puja. The film was reported to be a remake of The Lift Boy (2019); however, Vasanthabalan denied the reports.

On 10 September, on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, the film's title Aneethi was revealed by Sivakarthikeyan and P. C. Sreeram along with a teaser.

Filming
Principal photography commenced on 18 February 2021. The filming took mostly place in Chennai. Principal photography wrapped by 24 May 2022.

Music
The music for the film was composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, in his fourth collaboration with Vasanthabalan after Veyil (2006), Angadi Theru (2010) and Jail (2021); second with Arjun after Putham Pudhu Kaalai Vidiyaadhaa (2022).

The first single "Thikatta Thikatta Kadhalippom" released on 31 October 2022,

Theatrical
Aneethi released theatrically on 21 July 2023. Apart from Tamil, it also released with a dubbed Telugu version titled Blood and Chocolate. The distribution rights were acquired by S. Shankar under S Pictures, working with Vasanthabalan for the second time after Veyil.

Home media
Aneethi was available to stream in Amazon Prime Video and Aha on 15 September 2023.

Reception
Aneethi received positive reviews from critics.

Logesh Balachandran of The Times of India gave the film 3.5/5 and wrote "Vasantha Balan, who is known for making emotionally loaded films, has come up with a well-written, hard-hitting thriller in Aneethi that's quite impressive in many ways." Gopinath Rajendran of The Hindu wrote "Aneethi is miles ahead with its plot and treatment when compared to the director’s previous film, Jail (2021). But it’s a far cry from Vasanthabalan’s earlier works which were more well-rounded and compelling. Despite having its heart in the right place and a lovely performance from Arjun Das, Aneethi, as a whole, is inadequate in pushing home its several messages in an intriguing manner. For a film on injustice, that’s unfair!" Pachi Avudayappan of ABP Nadu gave the film 2.5/5 and wrote "On the whole, 'Aneedhi ', which calls for justice for the common man, would have been appreciated if it had increased its pressure through visuals."

Dinamalar gave the film 2.5/5. Kallilullah of Hindutamil.in wrote "'Aneethi ' is not likely to do injustice to the audience as it talks about various things like capitalist exploitation and the impact of consumer culture on the common people, but the screenplay is still not without justice."