Aakash Baskaran’s romantic drama, Idhayam Murali, has arrived on Netflix on August 7, 2026, after a long run on the big screen. The movie traces one man’s quiet history with love across five different years. Atharvaa plays ‘Idhaya,’ a man who feels deeply but says little, as he moves from school crushes to adult relationships without ever fully opening up.
Director Aakash Baskaran keeps the tone light and nostalgic, leaning on bright visuals, friendship, and music over heavy drama. While the film charms with its style and cast, it struggles to give its romances real weight, making it a pleasant but surface-level tribute to unspoken feelings.
Growing up in borrowed silences
‘Idhaya’ carries love the way some people carry secrets, quietly and for too long. The film opens on the verge of his wedding, with him talking to a stranger named ‘Surya’ while hurrying to the venue. What could have been a tired flashback device gets a quick, knowing nudge when ‘Surya’ himself points out he’s not here to trigger a memory montage.
That small bit of self-awareness sets the tone. The story moves through five years: 1998, 2006, 2011, 2019, and 2024. Each stop introduces a woman who briefly shapes ‘Idhaya’s’ idea of affection. There’s the school teacher who earns his childhood admiration, the tuition classmate he watches from a distance, the college friend who feels closer, and finally the woman he’s meant to marry.
Director Aakash Baskaran frames these episodes less like tragedies and more like passing seasons. ‘Idhaya’ isn’t the kind of hero who collapses when love doesn’t land. He absorbs it, moves on, and tries again. That lightness is both the film’s charm and its limit. Because he never breaks, we never fully worry whether he will. The screenplay keeps things breezy on purpose. Music stays upbeat, visuals stay warm, and even tense moments are softened before they can turn heavy.
There are references scattered through, nods to growing up in the 90s and 2000s, and a callback to the original Idhayam that will hit anyone who remembers that song. Friendship gets more room than romance here. The college gang, with its easy jokes and shared trips, feels lived-in, and their presence keeps the mood from sinking.
The structure borrows from familiar coming-of-age templates where a young man learns about love in stages. But the film resists digging too deep. We see ‘Idhaya’ admire, hesitate, and retreat, but we rarely learn why that fear sticks. Is it upbringing, temperament, or just habit?
The question floats by without an answer. The women he meets are drawn with broad strokes: teacher, doctor, and student. While the cast looks the part and fits the world, their inner lives stay thin. One character decides he must be “the one” simply because he keeps appearing. That’s cute on paper, but it doesn’t give us a reason to believe in them as a pair. Even the friends function more as punchlines than people. So the film becomes a series of pleasant moments rather than a build toward something urgent. It entertains, but it doesn’t ache.
Nostalgia, style, and the missing weight
Where Idhayam Murali works best is in texture. The palette is bright, the frames are clean, and the period details do a lot of heavy lifting. The opening stretch especially leans into memory: uniforms, tuition classes, and small-town streets. It lands because it feels specific without trying too hard. Thaman’s background score pushes everything forward and keeps the tone light, even when scenes drift. The actors help too.
Atharvaa plays ‘Idhaya’ with restraint. He doesn’t overplay the longing, and that choice makes the character easy to root for. Fahadh Faasil appears in a supporting turn that adds energy and gets one of the film’s bigger reaction moments late on. Sudhakar and the rest of the social-media faces bring comic timing that stops the film from feeling too smooth. And yet, the film keeps choosing ease over depth.
There are detours. This includes a bus fight, a councillor’s interruption, and a graduation party that doesn’t connect back to ‘Idhaya’s’ emotional journey. They fill time but don’t sharpen it.
The romance with ‘Amudha,’ for example, begins with potential. A hospital meeting, a few shared silences, a chance to finally speak. But the film cuts away before we understand what draws them together beyond proximity and looks. The same pattern repeats. A moment starts, then a montage arrives, and we’re on to the next year. Because of that, the big emotional payoffs feel unearned. When ‘Idhaya’ finally acts, it feels more like plot mechanics than something we’ve watched him grow into.
The comparison to other multi-stage romances is inevitable, but here the episodes don’t stack into a larger feeling. They remain episodes. The film wants to celebrate unspoken love without the pain that usually comes with it. That makes it easy to watch, but also easy to forget.
Idhayam Murali is a tribute that prefers homage and style over risk. You leave with a smile, with a few songs in your head, and with the sense that you’ve seen a decent, good-looking romance that could have said more if it had stayed with the silence a little longer. It’s fun in parts, pleasant overall, and sincere about its intent, which is not deep enough to linger after the credits.
Have you watched Idhayam Murali on Netflix? Let us know.
PC: Netflix India/YouTube
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