 Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff called Saroja Devi , " a style icon " , and rated this as " her best " performance , comparing it with her role in <unk> <unk> Pillai ( 1965 ) . Sify called Nagesh 's on @-@ screen chemistry with M. G. Ramachandran in the film " fantastic " , further elaborating that , " In this film the MGR @-@ Nagesh scenes according to a veteran distributor brought repeat audiences to the theatres . He played the hero 's sidekick and was simply terrific . " They also praised Anbe Vaa for being " one of the rare films of MGR with minimum action scenes and punch dialogues " . In July 2008 , The Times of India said , " If ever one comes out with a list of highly entertaining Tamil movies , this one will top the list " , and gave the film a rating of three stars out of five . Following <unk> 's death in June 2016 , they said , " The director 's gifts of storytelling , intelligent lines , good song positioning , and extracting creditable performances were at play " with this film . Karan Bali stated in 2016 , " The comedy [ ... ] is enjoyably light @-@ hearted fluff and sees MGR ably carry the film through in the role of the Westernised , wealthy urbane romantic hero . The role is different from the MGR prototype – the poor , mother @-@ loving crusading Tamil hero who fights for the oppressed and tames the rich heroine while all along propagating the DMK ’ s ideology and concerns . " Writing for The Hindu , Malathi Rangarajan described it as a " breezy romantic comedy " that had " none of the formulaic ingredients of an MGR film " . Following Manorama 's death in October 2015 , Jayalalithaa – then the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu – described her performance in the film as " superb " . 
