Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Teenager Praveen has only one goal: to enjoy his youth by falling in love before high school ends. His overly optimistic mother, Saroja, meanwhile, is confident he’ll become an IAS officer, even though he’s barely scraped through his 10th board exams. Given the general chaos in Praveen’s life, neither his dream nor his mother’s seems likely to come true!
Written and directed by Ken Karunas, who also plays protagonist Praveen, the 2026 Tamil film Youth is a hilarious coming-of-age comedy about teen crushes, classroom chaos, love, family, being silly with friends and growing up. The film comically opens with Praveen’s strict father Unnikrishnan (Suraj Venjaramoodu) expecting his son to fail Class 10 and join his bakery. Convinced that further education would be a waste of money, he refuses to fund it. But his wife Saroja (Devadarshini) goes full tiger-mom mode, fighting tooth and nail to ensure their son continues his studies.
Set in 2014, when teens were still hanging out on Facebook, ‘Youth’ is a little like Pradeep Ranganathan’s hit film Dragon in reverse. If Dragon was about an intelligent class topper abandoning academics to become the ‘bad boy’ girls chase after, Praveen is a class slacker who needs to buck up to find love.
Praveen first falls for Preshika (Meenakshi Dinesh), a fellow slacker, but his affections begin to waver when Sonal (Priyanshi Yadav), a pretty girl from another class, suspiciously starts showing an interest in him. And just when his friends Guna (Abison Thevarasa), David (Eshwar Santhanalakshmi), and Babloo (Sarath) think Praveen’s love life couldn’t get more chaotic and cheesy, he develops a crush on the nerdy, earnest Kanaga (Anishma Anilkumar). More confusion and heartache await our hopeless young romantic!
At two hours and 20 minutes, ‘Youth’ serves up plenty of laughs with silly teenage shenanigans throughout most of its runtime. Ken Karunas delivers an endearingly funny performance as Praveen, who’s eternally optimistic about his chances with the girls he falls for. The boy clearly thinks he’s the leading man in a romantic film, and the screenplay hilariously indulges his fantasy, complete with dramatically windswept hair in scene after scene and an excellent soundtrack accompanying his romantic adventures. Praveen is forever trying to flirt with or impress his crushes, while his friends roll their eyes at his antics.
Youth also gives us some hilariously lopsided family dynamics. On one side is the naive Saroja, played delightfully by Devadarshini, a devoted boy-mom who’s so busy pampering her son that she’s practically his full-time personal assistant. On the other is his permanently grouchy father, who has plenty of love to shower on his wife but considers showing any affection to his son a crime.
The entire cast of Youth is entertaining, with some actors managing to make even background moments funny. It’s only in the last half-hour or so that the film begins to suffer from pacing issues, especially as the screenplay resorts to a clichéd twist to introduce some conflict. The film abruptly shifts gears from over-the-top cute comedy to serious family melodrama, but it’s all in service of teaching Praveen an important life lesson.
If you’re looking for a fun teen Tamil comedy, this is totally worth a watch!
Rating: 7 on 10. Watch ‘Youth’ on Netflix.
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