Sarvam () is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language hyperlink action thriller film co-written and directed by Vishnuvardhan. The film stars Arya, Trisha, J. D. Chakravarthy, Indrajith, and Rohan Shiva. The film, which had been under production since late 2006, was produced and distributed by K. Karunamoorthy and C. Arunpandian under the banner of Ayngaran International Films. It was filmed by Nirav Shah and edited by Sreekar Prasad. The film's soundtrack, composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, was released on 14 February 2009, coinciding with Valentine's Day.
The film revolves around five individual characters and the events that change everything in their lives, which the film's title refers to, and also brings them together. It contains two parallel stories that are connected by a freak accident in Chennai. A young architect falls in love with a young, beautiful pediatric doctor, runs after her, and tries to convince her to marry her. Simultaneously, a morose ex-football coach troubles a software engineer by vowing to kill his eight-year-old son. How these characters get connected and confronted through the accident forms the crux of the story.
After several postponements, the film was released worldwide on 15 May 2009 to mixed reviews and became an average grosser.
Plot The film opens with a fight between two individuals on a rainy night in a deep, dark forest. In the opening scene, a title card is presented with an Upanishad quote: "Death is just the beginning of another life".
Karthik is a carefree architect who comes across Sandhya, a pediatrician, in a go-kart race. Karthik immediately falls in love with Sandhya and wants to convince her to marry him. Karthik finds out several facts about Sandhya and arranges a meeting by pretending that she caused a car accident and damaged his car. When that approach fails, he goes to the hospital where Sandhya works, becoming a regular visitor and making efforts to woo her. Sandhya, however, has other interests and shows no signs of reciprocating his love. She believes that Karthik is too carefree and not serious about life. One day, Sandhya's parents tell her about her to-be-fixed marriage. She finally recognizes that Karthik is the right match and slowly develops a deep love for him. She wholeheartedly agrees with the marriage.
Simultaneously, a morose, mysterious man, Eashwar, who always moves around with his Rottweiler, goes to see Naushad, a software engineer who happily lives with his eight-year-old son Imaan. A few months ago, Naushad had accidentally hit and killed Eashwar's wife Geetha and son Naveen in a car crash. Eashwar, apparently mentally disturbed, keeps murmuring that Naushad was solely responsible for their deaths. Eashwar keeps following Naushad, telling him that he will feel the same pain only when his own son dies. A workmate of Naushad informs him that Eashwar had visited him and requested information about Naushad, and tells him to be aware. He and his son escape to his friend's place near Elliot's Beach, Chennai.
Meanwhile, Karthik and Sandhya, who happily spend time together, are ready for marriage and make plans for the future. Karthik then suddenly asks Sandhya to postpone their marriage for a year. However, Sandhya insists on marrying at the earliest possible date. To solve this problem, they decide to hold a cycling race across a road on Elliot's Beach so that the winner makes the decision, which the loser must accept. At the same time, Imaan and his friend fly a kite on the terrace of Naushad's friend. Suddenly, Imaan faints and falls, which distracts the boys, and they let the kite fly away. Sandhya, who is ahead of Karthik and leading the race, rides straight into the kite thread, which cuts her neck, fatally injuring her. She dies in the hospital from blood loss.
Six months later, Sandhya's father visits Karthik, who is under depression following her death, and informs him that even after death, Sandhya has saved the life of a child, since her heart has been transplanted into a boy, who happens to be Imaan. Karthik becomes emotional and overjoyed that at least one part of his love is alive, and goes to meet Naushad and Imaan. He finds out that they have left their home in Chennai and moved to Munnar in Kerala. He travels to Munnar to see them and feels happy again, while learning from a grateful Naushad that Imaan suffered from cardiomyopathy and Sandhya's heart had saved his life. Meanwhile, Eashwar, who had followed Karthik, also arrives in Munnar, where he meets a car mechanic Syed (who used to play professional football with Eashwar), and allows Eashwar to stay at his home.
Karthik goes to see the father and son one last time before returning to Chennai, when suddenly, a car hits Imaan. Karthik, who was just ready to go home, comes back and saves Imaan. Shocked by that incident, Karthik does not believe that it was merely an accident and wants the truth from Naushad, who has been admitted to the hospital after having been injured in the accident. Karthik then learns about Eashwar, who was the man in the car, and his intentions. Eashwar has bought the same car that killed his family and seeks revenge for their death by killing Imaan in return. Karthik decides to take Imaan to a nearby place where he had stayed before, promising Naushad that he will protect and look after Imaan.
Subsequently, Karthik tries to befriend Imaan, who dislikes him and wants to stay with his father. When they later travel by car, Karthik and Eashwar encounter each other, and Eashwar threatens Karthik. A cat-and-mouse chase follows, where Eashwar wants to dispose of Karthik to get to Imaan and kill him. Syed sees Eashwar chasing Karthik and offers to help after hiring some local goons, who will kill both silently without mentioning Eashwar's and Syed's names. One night, after mixing snake venom in their knife, the goons reach Imaan's house, scratch Karthik's waist with that knife, and Karthik slightly faints due to the snake poison; however, he summons his strength, fights the goons back, and protects Imaan.
However, Eashwar finds the still-alive Karthik and Imman in the heart of the forest. A fight ensues, with Eashwar initially gaining the upper hand and beating Karthik, who becomes unconscious due to the snake venom and falls into a grave, which Eashwar then fills after to kill him, and hunts Imaan down in a derelict church. However, Karthik reemerges from the grave and attacks Eashwar, overpowering him and breaking his arm and leg, paralyzing him for life, albeit sparing him alive.
A now-paralyzed Eashwar is admitted to the hospital and treated for his condition. Karthik escorts Imaan and Naushad back to Chennai from Munnar and makes them stay with him in his new house, which he had constructed for Sandhya.
Cast
Production
Development In June 2006, B Studios and Studio Green announced that they would co-produce the production of Vishnuvardhan's Sarvam, which would have Suriya and Ileana D'Cruz . After the film was supposedly dropped, though it was already started in October 2006 with a photo shoot for the film, the project was revived just one week later. The restarted film was first to be produced by Surya's cousin, K. E. Gnanavelraja, who earlier produced the Surya-starring Sillunu Oru Kaadhal and was producing the award-winning film Paruthiveeran, starring Surya's brother, Karthi, at that time. However, he suddenly backed out of the project for unknown reasons and Vishnuvardhan, looking for another producer, approached 'Aascar' Ravichandran and the Malaysian RJ, 'Punnagai Poo' Gheetha, who produced Vishnuvardhan's Arinthum Ariyamalum and Pattiyal as well, and director Saran to produce the film, who all opted out. Later, Surya also opted out of the project, and after Vishnuvardhan tried to cast R. Madhavan in his film, which also failed for unknown reasons, the film was finally shelved in December 2006 and Vishnuvardhan instead started to film the remake of the 1980 Rajinikanth-starring Billa, titled Billa as well, starring Ajith Kumar in the lead role.
In August 2007, when Vishnuvardhan was still working on Billa, it was reported, that he had not given up on Sarvam and wanted to restart the film once Billa is finished and released, with Arya in the lead role. It was also rumored that composer Yuvan Shankar Raja would produce the film, which turned out be wrong, with K. Karunamoorthy and C. Arunpandian taking over the project and producing it under the banner of Ayngaran International. Filming began in May 2008 with Arya, Trisha and J. D. Chakravarthy .
The film was first reported to be a remake of the 1986 Hollywood thriller The Hitcher and later to be a remake of another Hollywood film, the 2003 drama 21 Grams.
Casting Initially, when Vishnuvardhan started the project in September 2006, he had signed up Surya to play the lead role, pairing up with the Mumbai model and former child actress Hansika Motwani, who was to make her debut in the Tamil film industry. Hansika Motwani was chosen after Vishnuvardhan had approached several actresses for that role, who ultimately refused to accept the offer for various reasons. First he tried to rope in Telugu actress Ileana, who reportedly demanded a remuneration of Rs 1 crore 75 lakhs, so she was dropped and Nila and Anushka were approached and the latter got the role, since Nila demanded too much as well. The project started and even a photo shooting featuring both the actors was held, before Surya had to opt out of the project, because he had earlier signed to star in Gautham Vasudev Menon's Vaaranam Aayiram. By November 2006, R. Madhavan was announced as the hero of the film, before the film was finally shelved in December 2006.
In November 2007, after Vishnuvardhan had finished his Billa, which was due to release, he restarted his shelved project Sarvam and started to scout his cast for the film again and reports say that again Surya was considered for the role, before supposedly Arjun was confirmed for the leading role with Arya playing the second lead. Reports indicated that the script has been changed several times to suit the lead actors; Vishnuvardhan, however, confirmed that the script did not change, stating that there are similarities between Surya and Arya and the script suited both and therefore change was not necessary. Sarvam was Arya's first film after Naan Kadavul, with which he was engaged for more than two years and for which he had grown a long, thick beard. In contrast to that, Sarvam features him as a romantic lover hero, whereby he had to remove the beard and, hence, the "Old Arya returned". Actually, Vishnuvardhan said, Arya's transition from Naan Kadavul to Sarvam was very difficult, since Naan Kadavul was a "lengthy process", where Arya had "forgotten the real in him". This was the third film in which Vishnuvardhan and Arya worked together after Arinthum Ariyamalum and Pattiyal, with Arya stating that Vishnuvardhan knows him "in and out" and that he was able to bring out the "best and finer aspects" of him, knowing his strengths and weaknesses, while Vishnuvardhan confessed that working with Arya was comfortable. Arya later also mentioned that the role of Karthik was the best role he had ever played in his film career, since the character had "many shades" as romantic, serious and emotional and there was "so much of variation".
Trisha eventually got the role of Sandhya after several actresses, including Hansika Motwani, Anushka Shetty, Nila, and Ileana, were considered and opted out. This marked her first collaboration with Arya. According to Vishnuvardhan, Trisha, though she is not a new entrant, looks "very fresh" in the film, which, he believes, is because of her co-star Arya. Besides, she has an "interesting quality", which is her "innocent smile irrespective of her mischievousness", Vishnuvardhan states, which was "very essential" for the character and the reason for giving her the role.