Raveena Joseph of The Hindu noted that films in the 1980s and 1990s which featured men stalking women, hoping to get them, were reflective of ``the times where romances were covert and such discretion was necessary even in consensual encounters'', citing Mouna Ragam as an example. The theme of a heroine moving to a strange place where she does not know the local language is replicated in Ratnam's later films, Roja (1992) and Bombay (1995).
Raveena Joseph
Mouna Ragam