I truly believe that in every good film, there lie delicate moments that lay bare its soul, moments where you know you’re in the presence of beauty. With Love has quite a few of them, and it’s these moments that truly make this film for me. Yes, the premise is clever, and keeps things energetic. Yes, the actors and characters (particularly Anaswara’s Monisha) bring spunk and personality. But if I welled up in this film (and I assure you I did), it is because of the film’s emotional maturity and its eagerness to prioritise beauty over all else, including morality.

This is a film that presents a married woman, already a mother and pregnant with her second child, as the little girl she still is when she meets someone she knows from school. And here’s a man trying to articulate his feelings for her… or actually, not needing to. I loved that beautiful touch where she says she already knows without him needing to say a word. As she puts it, ‘women just know when men look at them differently’. In that entire scene, the film stays tight and close on her, capturing her almost embarrassed laughter throughout. It’s like the film loves her too.

We live in a society where hatred is expressed freely and openly; yet, when it comes to love, we remain hesitant, frightened, perhaps of judgment and potential rejection. Both Sathya (Abishan) and Monisha (Anaswara), even as adults, are terrified of this. It’s only when they realise, as Ross once tells Rachel in FRIENDS, that expressing love is an end unto itself, that they (and the world around them) seem to become better.

I also quite enjoyed how, even in the school portions, the personalities of both Sathya and Monisha clearly come through. A usual film would paint teenage Monisha in cliched shades of meekness or cuteness, but here, it’s quite the opposite. She’s feisty, with a violent edge to her. But yes, the school segments are steeped in innocence too. A love blooms when someone gets caught in an examination hall; another quietly dies when a trusted friend turns out to be less selfless than our cinema usually shows them to be.

The screenplay employs dual perspectives, and through a portion about a teacher, even speaks of the dangers of holding a singular point of view. I enjoyed the film’s visual signatures too, as shots and angles get repeated. Sean’s music is such an ally to this film, and when Monisha gets her own variation of Aiyo Kadhaley as she speaks about her first love, you see that this film has a taste for narrative symmetry.

For a film that walks a fine line between lightness and sentimentality, there are a few areas that weren’t as compelling for me. Sathya’s tendency to turn on screeching vocals, in order to create humour, didn’t always land for me (even if ideas and dialogues did). And while Monisha’s energy means you get Sathya’s attraction for her, the reverse perhaps isn’t as obvious. Also, the proposal at the end perhaps needed to be more memorable? I thought the Sathya–father angle, too, felt a bit… calculative?

While on the topic of Sathya’s family, I totally loved that moment when a heartbroken Sathya hugs his sister. Watch him closely, and you’ll see the body language not of a brother, but of a child, seeking a mother (his mother, we learn, died early). It’s these small, emotionally aware details that really elevated this film for me.

And With Love is full of such touches.