Films that deal with the supernatural usually take the horror route with the ghosts, more often than not, being motivated by revenge. Naga, the director behind television serials like Marmadesam, does something different in his big-screen debut Aananthapurathu Veedu, by giving us spirits whose motivations and actions are quite the opposite. That makes the film another venture that belongs to a unique genre - feel-good horror? - but the simplistic screenplay, weak characterization and poor special effects come in the way of the film capitalizing on that fact.

Bala(Nandha), his wife Revathi(Chaya Singh) and their son Ananth(Master Aryan) go to Bala's ancestral house in Aananthapuram for a vacation. But it becomes apparent, first to Ananth and then to Revathi, that some spirits reside in the house. Rattled, Revathi wants to leave but learns that what she thought was a vacation was actually a getaway as Bala is being hounded by a loan shark for a loan he took after being cheated in his business. The men have found him here and aren't ready to tell them go till they get their money back.

Considering that it deals with the supernatural, the film jumps right into the heart of the matter. Unlike most horror films, the spirits here are good but Naga could've still presented them more effectively. There is no build-up, no gradual revelation of the house having some unseen guests, no suspense about their nature as, within a few minutes of the family moving into the house, the kitchen utensils take on a life of their own and the vegetables makes Aryan laugh. Also, Nandha's backstory and the spirits' activities make it pretty clear who they are. So the dual elements of films dealing with such subjects - suspense about mysterious happenings and the excitement as they are explained - are both completely absent.

The realization about who the ghosts are and the understanding of the reasons behind their actions leads to some effectively sweet scenes. Their interactions with Aryan are especially emotional since it is clear that they are simply trying to make up for lost time by doing everything they would've done had they been alive. So scenes like the one where we see Aryan sleeping while being suspended in the air or being pushed on the swing are nice. They do similar things for Nandha and Chaya Singh also but those don't have quite the same effect and even go close to seeming corny sometimes.

The flimsiness of the storyline becomes strongly evident after that as the film, with time to kill until the climax, begins to spin its wheels. So individual sequences, like the chase in the lanes, are stretched out for too long. Nandha's attitude towards the ghosts also keeps changing in a rather frustrating fashion and the resulting actions, like hiring the local exorcist and screaming at the spirits, contribute nothing to the story.

With Nandha in trouble and some good ghosts hanging around, the climax unfolds along expected lines. Still the execution is disappointingly low-key. A few slamming doors and the moving around of a couple of objects are all that the spirits do.

Nandha is fine as the troubled man trying to keep his family out of his business but towards the end, the flakiness of his character does rub off on him a little bit. Chaya Singh seems rather mellow compared to her chirpiness in her other movie outings. Master Aryan is very cute and does a good job without overdoing things like most child artists. Kishore, who plays Nandha's friend, seems a bit stiff initially but is convincing towards the end. While Shankar usually splurges when it comes to his directorial efforts, he seems quite miserly when it comes to his production house and that's really evident here. There are far too little special effects considering the subject and genre and whatever is there is done quite poorly. The only part that works is the way claustrophobia is depicted but everything else, like the dancing vegetables, looks shabby and cheap. Chithira Vaanam... is an OK number with Chaya Singh mouthing the rap bits energetically.