It has been over five days since I watched Geetu Mohandas and Yash’s Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups in theatres with a blind optimism that’s quite unlike me. The rational side of me knew the film might not live up to what the makers were painting it as. But the side of me that loses her head in the clouds every time I step into a movie theatre was grasping at straws to see the bright side. Boy, was I wrong.
Toxic is a gangster tale set in Goa, then under Portuguese control. So, there’s quite a lot of Anglo-Indian swagger dotting the film. Fedora hats, perfectly tailored suits, beaded form-fitting gowns, immaculate hair and lipstick, sparkling diamonds are commonplace every turn you take. But beyond the beauty lies the tale of a man rotting from the inside. Good or bad, there is always a price to pay for anything you put out into the world.
As I sat through an over 3-hour runtime of what felt like repetitive scenes of violence and sex, smoking and drinking, corny dialogue which includes cringy pick-up lines, and a plot that seemed to be going nowhere, I wondered what the point of it all was. It’s only when I was ready to give up that Toxic showed me a semblance of coherence and cut into its chest to reveal a beating heart. But then, that begins to feel like a cop-out to tell the naysayers, “See, we had a plan all along. You’re just too stupid to see it.”
I’ve since had time to think and get beyond my indignation at what Toxic offered me versus the promise it held. I’ve realised that Geetu and Yash had the potential to tell the story of how no normal or brave person would do what we expect of a commercial hero in South Indian cinema or celebrate as heroism. Yash’s character, Raya and his sister, Nayanthara’s character, Ganga, had to battle horrific trauma to reach where they are, and that leaves scars. Raya being a violent, power-hungry lothario is nothing to celebrate. He is who he is due to unresolved trauma. Every action taken in the film has only deepened the wounds and let them fester rather than heal
.
Toxic was mounted on an estimated budget of Rs 500 crore. It was shot in Kannada and English simultaneously. DNEG was on board for the film’s VFX and virtual production. They had actors like Yash and Nayanthara, as well as Kiara Advani, Huma Qureshi, Tara Sutaria, and Rukmini Vasanth. There was so much potential. This could’ve been Geetu and Yash’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous 1886 novella), the antithesis to all the Animals and Pushpas. The film would’ve gone down in history for being bold and brave in telling its story. So, it’s baffling why, instead of focusing on the unravelling of this man with a thirst for power, the film instead plays to the gallery.
Akshay Oberoi, who also starred in the film, told Hindustan Times that Toxic is the marriage of two different schools of thought, meaning Yash and Geetu. It clicked to me that he’s right. It is a marriage, albeit a turbulent one, between commercial and indie sensibilities. The issue is that for most of the runtime, the film chokes anything resembling vulnerability to death rather than letting it breathe. Until the very end, the side of Raya that is struggling to stay afloat is treated like the unlikable sibling to the side of him chopping people to bits when it should’ve been the other way around. If this is the tale you want to tell, say it with your chest. Let me leave the theatre with tears, not because I mourn what the film could’ve been, but because of the price Raya and Ganga have to pay.
Since the film’s release, I’ve seen people defending the film like it’s a misunderstood ex-lover. “You aren’t acknowledging the finer nuances,” said some. “You don’t like it because it wasn’t spoon-fed,” said others. Some were so confident in their claims on social media that I sat down to reflect and wonder if I overreacted when I rated it a 1/5. Was I too harsh in my critique of it? While I eventually understood the point of the film, did I not give Geetu or Yash their due? But then I re-watched the trailer of Moothon, not even the whole film. It reminded me of the tenderness and brutality, beauty and ugliness, love and hate that Geetu is capable of showing. And Toxic is not it.
