Vishnu Edavan is counting on the cast, the chemistry and enough jokes to get a familiar story through.
Devayani ( Nayanthara ) is fleeing an arranged match to a boor whose family has paid her father Indhiran (Prabhu) ₹57 lakhs.
One "Hi" from her undoes him; when the groom's party arrives to haul her back, Mayil announces she is pregnant with his child.
His mother Parimala (Radhika Sarathkumar), guilt-tripped and giddy about a grandchild, postpones the wedding by three months, the window he wants to make the fake romance real.
Radhika Sarathkumar thankfully doesn't have television-mother excess.
The Times of India TNN, Aug 27, 2026, 4:03 PM IST 3.5/5
Late in Hi, a character teases that even the audience has figured everything out by now. Vishnu Edavan is counting on the cast, the chemistry and enough jokes to get a familiar story through. Mostly, they do. Mayilsamy ( Kavin ) carries a lifetime of romantic rejection. Devayani ( Nayanthara ) is fleeing an arranged match to a boor whose family has paid her father Indhiran (Prabhu) ₹57 lakhs. One "Hi" from her undoes him; when the groom's party arrives to haul her back, Mayil announces she is pregnant with his child. To get her to play along, he invents a Rawalpindi lover named Shakira, and pins the pregnancy stunt on a film whose hero's name he can't place, something like a milk brand. It's Hi's own leading man. His mother Parimala (Radhika Sarathkumar), guilt-tripped and giddy about a grandchild, postpones the wedding by three months, the window he wants to make the fake romance real. Vaathiyar (Bhagyaraj), Mayil's father, sees off the jilted groom with a single cheque, and draws laughs on hauteur and dry delivery alone. When an aunt asks which saami (god) the bride's family worships, Mayil's ever-present fixer of a friend Ganapathi (Aadhithya Kadhir) offers "Arvind Swami". VTV Ganesh turns up dealing in silicone baby bumps, collects his laughs and is gone before he overstays his welcome. Much of the rest is dad-joke territory and only about half lands, but the humour stays self-effacing, mostly at the hero's expense. Mayil starts out written as a near-child before the film mercifully dials it back. The fake bump somehow survives a house full of relatives. Harder to buy is Devayani taking this long to work out whom Mayil loves. Both families wave through an unmarried pregnancy; abrupt, sure, but better than a sermon from every elder in the cast. The emotional stretches later on sag; fifteen minutes could go without loss. Yet Indhiran has spent twenty years waiting for the wife (Suhasini) who walked out on him, and when the film at last grants that reunion, the heavy sentiment works; it may leave a few eyes wet. Kavin keeps it light and quick. A lot of the comedy works because he is there, even when someone else gets the line. His expressions and voice modulations are on point, and there is quite a bit of variety in this film. Nayanthara lends star presence to a role that demands not too much. Radhika Sarathkumar thankfully doesn't have television-mother excess. Bhagyaraj, in a posthumous release, reminds you how much he could do with a dry line and a raised chin. Jen Martin's music is functional. The wheel stays unreinvented. It spins nicely all the same. By Abhinav Subramanian
