Plot

Uthaman Pradeep is a 24-year-old software engineer working at Cognizant, in Chennai. He lives with his mother, Saraswathi, and elder sister, Divya, who has been engaged to a dentist, Dr. Yogi, for the past 8 months, and is about to get married in 4 days. Pradeep is in a relationship with his colleague, Nikitha, whose father, Venu Sastri, is a sly and orthodox Brahmin. Pradeep goes to her house to meet and convince Venu, for their marriage. Venu toys around with Pradeep for a while and puts forward a strange deal: Pradeep and Nikitha must immediately exchange their mobiles for one day, along with the respective mobile’s password. After the end of the period, if they still feel that they are in love, Venu will not object to their union, else they can go their separate ways.

Both Pradeep and Nikitha agree to it half-heartedly. Pradeep comes back home to manage his sister’s wedding. Pradeep goes through a revelation while browsing Nikitha’s phone, as she still has her old conversations with her ex-boyfriend saved onto her phone, which frustrates and leaves Pradeep suspicious about her. Pradeep confronts Nikitha about this and then goes to Venu’s home the next day, and extends the mobile exchange until Divya is married to Dr. Yogi, to know more about Nikitha’s relationships, to which, Venu agrees. Unbeknownst to Pradeep, Venu instructs Nikitha to restore the WhatsApp messages that Pradeep had cleared prior to the exchanging, to know about Pradeep’s true colors.

Meanwhile, Divya and Yogi seem to get along very well, as Yogi is a cultured and mild-mannered man, who treats Divya as an equal. During the wedding rituals, he becomes moody and snatches his phone from Divya, when she picks it up due to an incoming call and does not give his phone to anyone either. This puts a lot of doubt in the minds of Divya and her friends. They repeatedly try to get his phone, open it, and check the contents, but they are thwarted by Yogi, at each attempt. This creates a lot of ruckus, especially when he does not hand his phone to Divya’s phone-addicted nephew.

Tensions arise when Pradeep realizes that his phone harbors a second Instagram account that he created in college; the account was earlier used to message Nikitha and her sister, Shwetha, perversely (although Pradeep did not do it). While Nikitha discovers porn-related searches by browsing through his phone, she does not have an idea about the second Instagram account. Pradeep meets up with her at a restaurant to try and convince Nikitha on handing over his phone for an OTP to remove the account from his phone. This is thwarted by Nikitha’s friend Revi, who discovers the account and informs Nikitha, causing a weakening in their already-strained relationship. Pradeep assaults Revi for constantly interfering with their matters, but is stopped by the restaurant staff and Nikitha leaves with Revi, heartbroken. Pradeep suspects his friends and fights with them despite their pleas that they did not do so.

Later at the reception, Pradeep discovers Divya and Yogi on the rooftop, and when he goes to snatch his phone, his mother intervenes and slaps him. Infuriated, he leaves the hall and sits on a platform beside a burning pyre. When his mother tries to comfort him, he tells her the truth about the strain in his relationship with Nikitha, to which his mother advises that trust in relationship is all that is required (a point cemented later when he finds the tree that he had planted in his childhood) and also talking to Yogi, who tells that his past experiences with mockery is the reason as to why he does not hand his phone, fearing that Divya might reject him for his appearance. Yogi hands over his phone to Divya, who refuses to look into it following her newfound respect and love for him and they reconcile, while Pradeep apologizes to his friends and they reconcile as well.

Meanwhile, a Porn clip, apparently of Nikitha, goes viral, prompting Venu to assault her and she leaves the house, heartbroken. When Shwetha informs this to Pradeep, he goes on the lookout for her and finds her sitting lonely at the beach. They both reconcile and rekindle their love for each other, while Pradeep’s friends track down the perpetrator of the video; Nikitha’s publicity-loving colleague had morphed her face into that video for the purpose of creating a trending video, and is arrested by the police. Pradeep and Nikitha go to her house where Venu explains that he exchanged their phones only to see if they could be strong in their relationship in spite of the hurdles, and that they had succeeded. Venu accepts the marriage proposal and invites Pradeep to come along with his family, for the nuptials. The film ends with a message that trust is all that is needed in order to find peace in today’s society.

Cast

Production

Development

After the success of Comali, Pradeep Ranganathan announced his next project which would be produced by Kalapathi S. Aghoram under the banner of AGS Entertainment under the tentative title as AGS 22.^[5] It was reported that the project would be an adaptation of Pradeep Ranganathan’s own short film App(a) Lock.^[6] Later, the title was announced to be Love Today, which was taken from the 1997 film of the same name starring Vijay and would mark Pradeep Ranganathan‘s debut as an actor in a leading role.^[7] The makers unveiled the first look poster of the film on 4 July 2022.^[8]

Casting

Ivana who previously appeared in films like Naachiyaar and Hero was signed in to play the female lead^[9], while Yogi Babu who previously collaborated with the director in Comali was signed on to play a supporting role while at the same time Raveena Ravi, veteran actor Sathyaraj and actress Radhika Sarathkumar were also confirmed to be a part of this film.^[10]

Filming

The shooting of the film was reported to begin on December 2021.^[11][12] On 22 July 2022, it was announced that the entire shooting of the film was wrapped.