Premante

This is a film in which a man slender enough to slip sideways through the bars of a police-station lockup chooses not to walk out when the cops are not watching. Instead, he quietly takes a constable’s phone while the officer dozes off, slips back into the lockup, and starts watching reels. With moments like this, director Navaneeth lays out the film’s grammar early on — through the quirks of the principal characters played by Priyadarshi and Anandhi, and even through this random man in the station — signalling that Premante (love means…) is not a conventional relationship drama. Anything can happen, and the film wants viewers to simply go along for the ride.