Rameswaram is one of those movies that I really wanted to like. After all, it highlights a serious, topical issue that few films deal with and makes it palatable by wrapping it in a commercial love story set against the backdrop of that issue. Manirathnam did this to great success in movies like Roja, Bombay and Kannathil Muthamittaal. But Selvam is no Manirathnam. The love story is so cliched and the Sri Lankan refugee issue is handled so shoddily that the film ends up looking like a disservice to the issue it chooses.

Jeevan(Jeeva) is one among a group of Sri Lankan refugees who have come to Rameswaram. Neither able to forget their homeland nor able to fit in in the adopted land, the refugees lead a difficult life. The local bigwig's(Lal) daughter Vasanthi(Bhavana) falls for Jeevan. Jeevan begins to reciprocate her love but is caught between accepting her love and returning to his homeland. Vasanthi's dad isn't too happy when he learns about his daughter's love affair either.

The director's heart is in the right place. He has chosen to focus on the plight of the Sri Lankan refugees who are forced to leave everything behind and seek refuge in a foreign land. Their situation is captured well and we see refugees who have lost everything and see Rameswaram as a safe haven as well as people whose heart still beats for their homeland and so can't wait to go back. The sight of both kids and adults living in makeshift houses and making do with what they get touches our hearts. The fact that they might have lost their wordly possessions but haven't lost their dignity and self-respect is brought out very well through their attitudes and some sharp dialogs. There are a couple of missteps(Jeeva wandering around in new clothes, some very artificial questions from a kid, etc.) but for the most part, Selvam gets things right.

Unfortunately, the love story developed in the foreground is as cliched as it gets. There is no basis for Bhavana falling for Jeeva and with this key piece missing, their romance is never convincing. Things don't get better after their romance becomes two-sided. Apart from the fact that the familiar 'poor boy-rich girl' romance is a 'poor refugee boy-rich girl' romance here, everything else in place - the adamant girl, the angry father and even the spiteful suitor. Even Jeeva's vacillation between his homeland and his girl, which is initially believable, becomes boring after a while and the conflicting pieces of advice he gets on what to do is irritating even to us.

Towards the end, the film abandons all pretensions of being about a serious issue and switches to full masala mode. It is pretty sad when Jeeva, who has so far been developed as a strong character, is reduced to a conventional Tamil cinema hero who fights inside a police station, survives a bullet wound, escapes from a hospital, beats up Bose and his friends in a conveniently deserted area and delivers a passionate monologue. A few punch lines are all that are missing!

Jeeva continues his good run and is convincing as the refugee. But his Sri Lankan dialect is not consistent and he keeps switching between the dialect and regular, conversational Tamil. Bhavana is pretty and looks the part. Lal does what he can with the cliched role of the father who opposes his daughter's romance. Bose Venkat starts off well but soon gets into overacting mode, hamming his way through the thankless role of Bhavana's suitor.