At first glance, Thadavu has the cadence of a ‘plight’ story of a woman. Everything in Geetha’s life goes wrong or rather, everything that she touches crumbles almost instantly. It is as though she is her own liability. When she goes to the bank to pledge some gold, the same bank is robbed and her own daughter is, in fact, briefly held hostage by the robber. When she extends help to a friend, a new mother, things go awryt to such an extent that she almost finds herself behind bars. Geetha cannot catch a break and perhaps what makes it worse for her is knowing that she will need someone, again, to step in to help her out. And even though she is extremely indebted to those people, she probably feels that they all secretly hold her responsible for everything anyway.
But Fazil Razak surprises us. In a Dardenne Brothers-like manner, Thadavu gradually becomes the portrait of a flawed character who, although dealt a bad hand, isn’t the typical paavam character we get to see in popular cinema. I don’t want to use the term ‘grey’, considering the connotations it carries in cinematic language, but it is safe to say that Geetha is one of the most refreshingly original and authentic female characters written in Indian cinema. And when I say she isn’t ‘paavam’, I don’t mean she is sly or scheming. No, not at all.
At the heart of it all, it is highly likely that Geetha is fighting for her autonomy and that she has always done that. It just could be that she never found the right channel to express herself, or maybe she didn’t know the right way to do it. Mistakes were made, sure, but she is paying a higher price only because she is not apologetic.