Nayaki, director Govi Govardhan wanted us to believe, was centred around Trisha Krishnan. It was supposed to be the actor’s first attempt at a woman-centric film, her Maya. But in the actual movie, Trisha appears her immaculately coiffed self in some scenes, a gorgeous blue-grey zombie in others; there is a faux-sad backstory, a sloppily executed revenge-dance and several costume changes. Sadly for Govi, that doesn’t mean Trisha is the main star of the film. Nobody really is.
The film has an interesting premise – a young girl, Gayathri grows up with dreams of being a star, until fate intervenes. She gets raped. The old classic – Sirimalle Poova (Senthoora Poove in Tamil) is used to interesting effect here, drawing parallels to Sridevi’s near-rape in Padahaerlla Vayasu (Padhinaaru Vayadhinile). The problem is that these scenes don’t happen until more than halfway into the film. Until then, we are forced to sit through ninety minutes of regressive dialogues mouthed by the irksome Sanjay (Sathyam Rajesh, as a vile womanizer) and close up shots of Sushma Raj’s assets.
About half of the people I watched the film with never returned after the intermission. The rest had already bought popcorn.
*****
Sathyam Rajesh’s Sanjay is a toady, 20- something who doesn’t have much by way of scruples. He’s a veritable dictionary of all things objectionable – he comes up with an elaborate plan for his girlfriend’s ‘birthday surprise’ at a farm house. Only ‘birthday surprise’ here means – cut a cake, roofie her drink and have his way with her. Consent is clearly an unknown concept to Sanjay. He even plans to film the whole encounter, so he can blackmail the girl into many more such sessions.
The film could’ve really used a better cast. Jayaprakash is normally a capable actor, as his performances in Pasanga, Naan Mahaan Alla have proved. Here, he is reduced to a caricature. He cries at the drop of a hat, is made to dance (the man has two left feet, and hands!) and plays the sort of creepy uncle we warn kids about. Ganesh Venkatraman, who could double for Edward Cullen with his vampire white skin, is no better.
Recommended
What we get instead are one dimensional characters – the toady Sanjay, Sandhya – the virginal being missing only a halo, and Trisha’s Gayathri – a well dressed phantom who plays with knives. It could also have used a better screenplay – there’s a heavy dose of misogyny in the first half, while the second is a lazily tacked on moral science lesson. I really enjoyed the scenes in which Gayathri beat up Sanjay. If only we could have had more of those.
At the end, this is not a ghost film. It is a ghost of a film, content to churn out done to death horror tropes and sleazy dialogues in the name of entertainment.
*****
The Nayaki review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.