CHENNAI : Within a few minutes of the recent flick Imaikaa Nodigal, it is established that CBI Officer Anjali Vikramadithyan played by actor Nayanthara is sharp, efficient and hardworking. As the one who cracked an earlier case of murders she is put on the task of tracking a serial killer this time. But we see as the story moves forward that she is aided by her brother and a doctor by profession, for his own vested interests to solve the case.
When the man/brother comes into the picture, we stop seeing an officer do her job — he’s doing more investigation that she is, more fighting than she is, and seems to be suffering more than she is. And thus, an able officer, and an actor who was holding fort phenomenally against the villain played by Anurag Kashyap has her story told, shown and won by a man who walks away with the credit and the happily ever after.
After Dora, Aramm, and Kolamaavu Kokila, movies that all had a few takeaways for the female lead, Imaikaa Nodigal could have been another feather added to Nayanthara’s hat, if only she had been allowed to do her job properly. If Nayanthara has been breaking glass ceilings by picking her roles carefully, then Samantha has broken a rule that has stayed for too long in cinema.
Her marriage is a matter of fact, and here she is going about her job, and that’s the end of the matter. It only needs mention because it’s a hard fought-for win in the film industry, that doesn’t see very many women ease into playing lead reel romantic roles after a real ring has been exchanged. It was this that had me cheering for this week’s release Seema Raja in which the actor plays the lead and a school PT teacher trained in Silambattam.
In the few shots we are shown of ‘Sudhanthira Selvi’ spinning Silambam we are made aware that both the actor and character are skilled in its usage. “Savage! Slay! Pah!” I was thinking, when the story moved to a scene when she is in trouble. I assumed she was going to fight off the men. Instead I sat there, my upper lip quivering in anger as I saw the actor’s quivering in fear on screen, as the Hero descended on a chariot (literally) to save her.
Thereon, we see Selvi slip more and more into a passive role as the hero emerges tall and victorious over her. Fight with the silambam she does at the movie’s very end, but only against a woman who has no threatening weapons to use. I remembered the climax of the 90’s movie Ullathai Allitha in which the women spin the rogues into dizziness, and several more in which the heroines did whatever they could to ward off thugs. Here was a fine Silambam teacher who wasn’t doing enough to help the hero win!
I sometimes wonder why heroines that are making it on their own backtrack to play archaic arm-candies to heroes — yes I’m suggesting Nayanthara in Velaikaaran. When I think of these two movies in which female leads are given cursory jobs or skills that are never put to use because they are saved by and upstaged by hero or some man, I realise that Tamil cinema has seen a variety of professions held by it’s heroines in past few years, including a plant psychologist!
It’s just that we have never seen these jobs be put to good use, as they exist merely as a ploy to move the plot forward, and sometimes make for better shots in a world that has had an overdose of heroines dancing in the rain, eating ice-cream, or pointing with excitement at something off screen. And what we need, named aptly after Samantha’s ‘Sundaradhira’ Selvi in Seema Raja, is a test to check if women are shown doing their jobs ‘free’ from the heroes help.