Oru Pakka Kathai

Oru Pakka Kathai (transl. One-page story / One-side story) is a 2020 Indian Tamil language romantic fantasy film written and directed by Balaji Tharaneetharan. It stars Kalidas Jayaram and Megha Akash. The movie is produced by K.S. Sreenivasan under the banner of Vasan's Visual Ventures. It was released on ZEE5 on 25 December 2020.

Oru Pakka Kathai
Poster
Directed by	Balaji Tharaneetharan
Written by	Balaji Tharaneetharan
Produced by	K. S. Sreenivasan
Starring	Kalidas Jayaram Megha Akash
Cinematography	C. Premkumar
Edited by	R. Govindaraj
Music by	Govind Vasantha
Production company	Vasan's Visual Ventures
Distributed by	ZEE5
Release date	25 December 2020 (2020-12-25)
Running time	124 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Plot

Meera and Saravanan are lovers who decide to marry after graduation. Both have their parents' blessings. In their conservative society, their intimacy begins before marriage and Meera gets pregnant. This causes panic among the couple and their respective family members. Doctors diagnosed her condition as parthenogenesis (becoming pregnant without intercourse as a virgin). Meera’s story goes viral on social media, and becomes the talk of the town. Despite the unwanted attention, Saravanan manages to convince his parents and marries Meera.

Cast

• Kalidas Jayaram as Saravanan
• Megha Akash as Meera
• Jeeva Ravi as Saravanan's father
• Lakshmi Priya Menon as Meera's mother
• P. V. Chandramouli as Meera's father
• Meena Vemuri as Saravanan's mother
• Shah Ra as Vembunathan
• Chef Damodharan as Lawyer
• Manobala as Doctor
• Sahasra Rajeesh as Saravanan's and Meera's child

Production

After the success of his debut venture, Balaji began pre-production on his second film titled Seethakaathi for Vasan's Visual Ventures. After a year of scripting, Balaji announced that he had temporarily shelved the venture and would resume it later (eventually restarted it in April 2017). In August 2014, he subsequently made an official announcement that his next venture would be Oru Pakka Kathai^[1] and would feature Kalidas Jayaram, son of actor Jayaram in the lead role. The launch for the movie was held on 1 September 2014 at Prasad Lab in Vadapalani. Kamal Haasan showed up for the event to introduce Kalidas to the audience.^[2] Shooting began in December 2014.^[3] The film was produced by K. S. Sreenivasan for Visual Ventures.^[4]

Release and reception

The film's distribution rights were bought by ZEE5 after a theatrical release failed to happen.^[5] It released there on 25 December 2020.^[6] Baradwaj Rangan wrote for Film Companion, "Balaji Tharaneetharan may be the gentlest filmmaker in Tamil cinema today. The smallest of plot points is treated with dignity. But the second half needed more work".^[7] Sowmya Rajendran wrote for The News Minute, "Oru Pakka Kathai, despite the fresh ideas, ends up looking like a one-page story that was dragged on for too long".^[8]