Dorothy

Dorothy is Karthik Subbaraj's most ambitious film so far and also his most focussed. He has always been fantastic as far as craft goes, but here he shows a control as a writer we haven't seen from him before — there's hardly a wasted line or shot, and nothing feels engineered to serve a predetermined narrative direction.

Dorothy remains one of Karthik Subbaraj's more daring films. Despite its uneven stretches and heavy-handed moments, Dorothy is a bold film that takes considerable risks and leaves plenty to discuss after the credits.

While his intent may be noble, it's impossible to say the same about its impact. Sure, his heart might have been in the right place, but the portrayals reek of an evident male and savarna gaze, which makes Dorothy as harmful as any other movie that propagates problematic notions.

Dorothy is an audacious and tender exploration of masculinity and gender identity that becomes muddled just when its ideas matter most. Dorothy is undeniably a bold attempt and a well-made film, anchored by two excellent lead performances. Yet, Karthik Subbaraj's film becomes frustratingly shaky and confusing exactly when it matters the most.

Karthik Subbaraj's Dorothy would like to believe that it has the kind of bravery that can singlehandedly cut wide open the possibilities of what mainstream Indian cinema can utter and traverse. Yet, it keeps chafing against its noble intentions. Subbaraj's choice can be questioned, especially how he positions trans agency, with a grating familiar impulse to interlace transness with divinity that inadvertently creates difference instead of embedding the trans community within the mundane.

Still, even with its clumsy handling of sensitive material and brutal approach to its themes, Dorothy glides with an energy typical of Subbaraj's films. It's a film that uses the language of a gangster movie within the framework of a forbidden romance, and the gamble mostly works even when the film is at its most pointed.

In Dorothy, Karthik Subbaraj treads mindfully; he employs gorgeous wide shots, expressive blurred shots and sometimes even caricature-ish frames to tell a story that's humane at its core. However, with Dorothy, he brings an engaging, visually stunning drama to the mainstream that would otherwise be deemed fit for 'art' cinema.

Dorothy is a welcome departure from that disappointment. The form is solidly present, flipping between a flashback in colour and a present in black and white—a reversal, where usually the past is rendered in monochrome nostalgia. Long shots litter the film—and there almost seems to be a narrative point to these long shots.

Within the framework of a crime thriller that has music by Ilaiyaraaja and striking compositions by cinematographer S Thirunavukarasu, Subbaraj shreds received wisdom with a brio that has to be seen to be believed. Dorothy is a terrific subversion of the conventional Tamil film romance.

Dorothy might be the start of a queer revolution in mainstream Tamil cinema, and Karthik has shown real effort to understand some of what queer life in India means. All it took was one audacious filmmaker, a daring producer, and a passionate cast to pull off what might just become the most important Indian film of the year.

Dorothy is a risk. It is a commercial, public relations and career risk not just for Subbaraj, but also for the cast members — especially the brilliant Rishikanth and Sannath. However, Dorothy isn't entirely uncharacteristic of Subbaraj, and it is a film that is shot and enacted with a lot of deliberation and attention to detail, making it delectable and thoughtful at the same time.