A remake of his Telugu film, Vedam (2010), it has an ensemble cast of Silambarasan, Bharath, Prakash Raj, Anushka Shetty, Santhanam, Sonia Agarwal and Saranya Ponvannan.

The score and soundtrack were composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja; cinematography and editing were by Nirav Shah and Anthony, respectively.

Vaanam is a hyperlink film whose story revolves around the lives of five people from different walks of life, illustrating how their fates intertwine on New Year's Eve at a Chennai hospital.

When Priya asks him to buy expensive tickets to a New Year's Eve gala, Raja is very short of money.

After a failed attempt at chain snatching in which he crosses paths with the police, he heads to a hospital with theft on his mind.

When she discovers that her life is in danger while working there, she escapes to Chennai with her sister Karpooram in the hope of starting a business venture.

Rahim learns that terrorist leader Mansoor Khan and his gang are planning to kill the people in the hospital.

[15] Shetty denied reports that she was hesitant and eventually confirmed that she would reprise her role from the original: "At no point did I refuse to be a part of this project".

[16] Manchu Manoj, expected to reprise his original character and play the rockstar role in Vaanam, opted out[17] and was replaced by Bharath.

[11][18] Sneha Ullal was initially signed to make her Tamil debut with this film and play Silambarasan's love interest.

[25] Telugu actor Ravi Prakash reprised his role in the original version for his Tamil film debut.

[29] Anushka Shetty's makeup artist, Nikki, played a transgender person in the film[30] reprising his role from the original.

[14] Due to the film's multi-narrative format of several short stories which combine in the climax,[31] it drew similarities to Amores perros (2000),[12] Aayutha Ezhuthu (2004),[32][33] Crash (2004)[32] and Babel (2006).

[44] A Sify.com reviewer considered the film "very good", saying that "this short story genre [...] manages to work well for the new age audience.

The reviewer praised the director and his team as they "push the cinematic envelope and bring savvy freshness to Tamil cinema".

[30] Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu said, "Pithy, poignant, funny and serious as the situation warrants, dialogue (Gnanagiri) is a highpoint of Vaanam.

[6] According to a review in The New Indian Express, "Relaying a warm message of compassion and hope, Vaanam, with its different take, is worth a watch".

Silambarasan denied any involvement in the film's promotional strategy, but hinted that its success was largely dependent on his stardom.

[49] Several prominent film-industry figures supported Silambarasan, saying that more-objectionable scenes had appeared in past films and there were "bigger issues in society"; censorship was not "the ideal way out in [a] democracy".