Natchathiram Nagargiradhu, written and directed by PA Ranjith, streaming on Netflix, is a universe in itself. It is a street play inside a film. It is about love that breaks all boundaries. It is about caste that pervades everything from what we eat to who we can love. It is about the fragile male ego. But at the centre of this universe is Rene (a brilliant Dushara Vijayan), a Natchathiram that storms just as gracefully as she glides.
Women on-screen especially written by men are often criticised, and rightfully so for being painfully one-dimensional. They conveniently fit into one-word adjectives suffixing a relationship with the male protagonist: caring mother, bubbly lover, scheming vamp, tomboy friend. With all the hullabaloo about this glaring lack of real women on-screen, there has been a new trope added to the list. The modern women. She cuts away all the conservatism of her small-town upbringing and is open to sex before marriage, wears short clothes, enjoy drinks and cigarettes mostly with open hair waving in a moving car with sunroof. This woman although seems empowered on paper, is sadly just another trope. A 21st-century Indian woman is at best a concoction of all these women on-screen. And Rene gloriously embodies these “contradictions”.
In the first shot of film, we see Rene in post coital bliss pausing “Feeling Good”, aptly playing on the phone, and lovingly ask a drowsy Iniyan (Kalidas Jayram), “Can we get married?” Iniyan casually agrees. Rene thinks for a second and goes on to question the validity of the institution of marriage and declares, “No, I won’t get married.” Iniyan easily agrees to this too like he is used to her wavering mind and drowses off into a slumber while Rene gets into a philosophical musing about love and death.