Ranjit Jeyakodi's Ispade Rajavum Idhaya Raniyum starts with a voice-over in typical Gautham Menon fashion. Coincidentally, it is a film surrounding the life of Gautham (Harish Kalyan), and his anger management issues caused by a dark past. He is someone who gets angry at the drop of a hat, and his micro-shortness of his temper is inversely proportional to the time the film takes to establish its premise. At the end of the first half, the only takeaway is - Gautham is a hothead, and he is in love with Tara (Shilpa Manjunath).

Gautham's anger is not just conveyed through dialogues or Harish Kalyan's acting. Kavin Raj, the cinematographer goes to the extreme of using a reddish tint whenever the anger issues take the forefront and start giving us visual cues, while Sam CS delivers a background score that is heavy on electric guitars and drums. Though the songs are loud, the electrifying score does the work at various places.

Barring a few songs here and there, at no point does the film compromise on its intention and take a lazy, commercial route. It is clear on what it wants to achieve. The film starts taking itself seriously in the second half and picks up the pace. The anger starts causing him 'more serious' problems, that almost puts his love life on the edge of a cliff.

The conflicts become stronger, and we start rooting for the relationship to become successful. But mind you, this is not a run of the mill romantic film. There are characters who make an effort to tell Gautham that he is stalking Tara. The lead pair get involved in a conversation about toxicity in their relationship. When was the last time we saw a Tamil film addressing these issues?

Just when the above-mentioned thoughts occur, Gautham smokes weed for the first time, and it seemed as if the film got stoned. Everything goes berserk, the actions of the characters aren't explained, the logic goes for a toss, and a lot of questions get raised, all within a span of 20-30 minutes in the second half.

The thoughts and maturity of the director have been translated well to the screen. He doesn't preach toxicity and stalking through lengthy monologues. Rather, he places scenes that show stalking, but provides a beautiful flip towards the end (watch out for Bala Saravanan's well-timed one-liner), resulting in it becoming more of representation, than glorification.