Gentlewoman

Gentlewoman starts off as a tale about a gentle woman. She wakes up. She makes coffee. She has her bath. She wears her saree. She cooks. She packs. Her husband wakes up, prays to God, and gets ready for work. He reads philosophy. On the outset, he is that perfect husband. But scratch just a couple of layers, we understand that he has made her a creature of habit. She wakes up, makes coffee, has her bath, wears her saree, cooks, packs, and also has to stand in the balcony and bid him goodbye as he leaves for work. But what does he do for her? Well, never once in the film does he do anything for her. And this is not registered by an elaborate scene, but just a simple callback that is effective and subtle. Probably why when director Joshua Sethuraman suddenly decides to get all preachy and rub our faces in the film’s ideology with verbose monologues, and random conversations that feel out of place in this world, it feels like a let-down.

Gentlewoman is one of those films that leaves you with the frustration that rises out of lost potential. It could have been the perfect free-hand circle, if not for the last wayward bit. The circle is not all that misshapen, but you can’t look past the botch made either because when things are going well, it is seamless, until it is not. The mistakes, even though just a few, become conspicuous when everything else is perfect. Now, the film, directed by debutant Joshua Sethuraman, is good. The lamentation is about how it could have been great as it kicks off with a brilliant premise and subtlety that is rare in crime thrillers of Tamil cinema.