I disagree, I think Mani Ratnam generally gets such dynamics right. Artificial dialogue ellAm vERa debate. (I think that charge itself is quite dubious.) Watching the film as a kid, I was in awe of the film (though the Kamal fanboy in me insisted on placing it just below Guna :)) just as I was with any Mani Ratnam film, but upon revisiting, the one-dimensional melodrama of this film did seem to me like an 'aberration' of sorts for a Mani Ratnam film. I mean, he's this filmmaker who's particularly acclaimed for his portrayal of individual relationships (now the most cliched assessment of MR but it's true nevertheless). Here, the relationships appear fairly one-dimensional. Think of lines like "unna mAdhiri oru aNNan enakku irundhirundhA, en ammA unna eppavO vitteRinjuruppAnga." Such in-your-face lines in a Mani Ratnam film, are they usual?