Manathil Urudhi Vendum

Nandini, a nurse, is the sole breadwinner of her family with six siblings where she has a elder sister and five younger siblings. Nandhini is a dedicated and caring nurse whom everyone is fond of. She works in a nursing home and on her way back she shares auto with Sundari and later they become friends and they share the house on the 50-50 sharing concept. In the hospital she saves a suicide attempting lady and brings her home and later knows she is fond of movies. A thief tries to steal something from their house and get caught red-handed and she gives a lecture of earning and self-worth and gives him some money and ask him to work hard. She managed her house through letter communication. One day her siblings Ramesh and Vivek go to Chennai to give a visit to her later learns that she divorced her husband and asks them not to say anything to parents and other siblings. A reporter writes an article which portrays nurses in bad light and Nandhini along with nurses confront him and Nandhini and reporter have a heated argument and leave his house. The person to whom Nandhini gave money and asked to earn becomes successful step by step and meet Nandhini accidentally at every stage. Nandhini thinks of marrying her sibling sister to him but much to her dismay her sister elopes with a former tenant of their home. His brothers Ramesh and another sibling have a fight which is regarding a political leader whom Ramesh is fond of and think as his God and during the fight the other sibling gets hurt which infuriates Nandhini and lashes out at Ramesh and ask him to earn on his own which makes him responsible and he earns and pays his exam fees.

• Suhasini as Nandhini
• Sridhar as Suriya
• Chandrakanth
• Aravind as Ramesh
• Vivek as Vivek[1]
• Ravikanth
• Lalitha Kumari as Vasu
• Yamuna
• K. S. Jayalakshmi
• Chithra
• Krishnan as Gothandam
• Vasanth as Reporter (guest appearance)
• Charle as Patient (guest appearance)
• S. P. Balasubrahmanyam as Dr. Arthanari

Rajinikanth, Vijayakanth and Sathyaraj appear in the song "Vangaala Kadale".[2]

Manathil Urudhi Vendum is K. Balachander's third film where "the daughter has to make sacrifices and take care of her family", following Arangetram (1973) and Aval Oru Thodar Kathai (1974).[3] While assisting with the script for the film in 1987, Balachander offered Vivek an acting role in the film, which he decided to pursue thus made his acting debut in the film.[4] Vivek recalling his experience on his first day of shooting: "I was asked to come running down the stairs. I did the shot to his satisfaction. But in doing so I hurt my toes. But I did not want to show it to him. But after a few minutes the blood was oozing from the wound. KB sir saw it and asked me immediately to attend to it".[5] This was the acting debut of S. P. Balasubrahmanyam.[6] Balachander initially recommended Ramesh Aravind to leave the film since his role was not substantial, and work on a venture with K. Bhagyaraj instead, to mark his debut in a leading role. Bhagyaraj's proposed film was later shelved, and Aravind returned to Manathil Uruthi Vendum.[7] Vasanth worked as an assistant director.[8]

The music was composed by Ilaiyaraaja, with the lyrics written by Vaali.[9][10] For the dubbed Telugu version Sister Nandini, all lyrics were written by Rajashri.[11]

Manathil Urudhi Vendum was released on 21 October 1987,[12] and Sister Nandini on 31 March 1988.[11] The Indian Express wrote, "Manadhil Urudhi Vendum comes over like a badly written stage play. It is a hodgepodge of elements from several earlier films made by K. Balachander".[13] Jayamanmadhan of Kalki, however, reviewed the film more positively, comparing it favourably to Balachander's earlier films.[14]

• Manathil Urudhi Vendum at IMDb