Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups

“I was hoping to have a civilised conversation,” says Melissa (Rukmini Vasanth) to the naked glowering gangster. Raya (Yash) glances down deliberately, then looks up and says, “Do I look civilised to you?” She pulls open her dress to reveal a bomb strapped to her chest, says she wants revenge for her father, who was ruined by Raya’s casino. He sets off the timer and propositions her while she panics. At the last moment, he flings the explosive out the window. Next thing you know, she’s threatening his ‘regular’ and calling herself his ‘permanent’. Toxic is thin as paper and empty like a broken promise. Not since Animal has a film tried this hard to get a rise out of the audience. But Sandeep Reddy Vanga at least knows his entire purpose is juvenile baiting. Try as she might, Geetu Mohandas doesn’t have that innate nastiness. The transgressions she offers are ridiculous but not shocking—a distinction the film itself makes when Nadia (Kiara Advani) tells Raya he’s not a bad guy, just toxic.

In response to classicist Emily Wilson’s rant about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, someone on X (formerly Twitter) quoted fabled film critic Roger Ebert about the intent of storytelling: “a movie should be evaluated for what it is and how it fully achieves the director’s vision”. How it’s basically unfair to pan movies for not being what you wish they were. Ebert’s opinion is often the crutch that many cinephiles and professional critics lean on to justify their moral stances on provocateurs like Sandeep Reddy Vanga: “judge Animal and Kabir Singh for what they are, not what you ‘wokes’ want them to be”. It’s a ready-made theory for moviegoers who have no other way to validate their kinks for stylised sexism and tortured megalomaniacs. They see it as a reflection of the world, conveniently ignoring the makers’ opportunistic fetishisations of it.

There are very few films that live up to their title, and Geetu Mohandas’ latest directorial venture, Toxic: A Fairy Tale For Grown Ups, is one of them. The film is more toxic than your red-flag ex and more a tale of horror than a fairy tale, even for grown-ups. Featuring Yash in an all-encompassing role, Toxic numbs you from the very beginning with its over-the-top drama, VFX, and too much screeching. Nothing in the film is subtle; everything and everyone is loud. And with a plot that is hard to fathom, Toxic feels a bit too much- much like its crowded star cast.

Toxic positions itself as ‘A Fairy Tale for Grown Ups’ but I don’t know which part of that description fits this hack job spanning five decades. Though the scene is bursting with all kinds of magical looking women, there are no fairies, godmothers, spells, myths and lore of adult or any kind to be found in this 190-plus minutes long stab at nothingness. Purely relying on Yash’s aura to the point of draining him dry, the spectacle doesn’t have an smidgen of storytelling in its body rolling in sex, shock and sounds of bullets fired at anyone and everyone.

A love so raw, it hurts. Everybody in the vicinity. And there are guns ready to blast off all around. Drama that emerges after an hour of confused mayhem finds tearful fiancee/bride Rebecca (Tara Sutaria), Raya (Yash) oozing uncontrolled testosterone, an extramarital passion with Circuswali Nadia (Kiara Advani) and Raya’s sister Ganga (Nayanthara) who’s sold herself early to take care of bro’s hungry tummy. But, as a line in the film goes, men have no brains below the tummy. On the sidelines cackles blood thirsty rival gangster Elizabeth (Huma Qureshi). A somewhat watchable story gets gnarled with blurred timelines, fragmented scenes and a hero who rasps rather than talks.

देखो जी, सीधी-सी बात यह है कि जिस फिल्म को बनाने वालों ने अपने टीज़र, ट्रेलर, गानों और प्रचार के साथ-साथ फिल्म के नाम तक में यह बता दिया हो कि वे लोग आपको टॉक्सिक यानी ज़हरीला मनोरंजन परोसने जा रहे हैं और जिस फिल्म के नाम की टैगलाइन बड़ी साफगोई से ‘बड़ों के लिए एक परी-कथा’ होने का दावा कर रही हो उसे लेकर आप चाहे जितना मुंह बनाएं, सिर खपाएं, खून जलाएं, इससे उन लोगों को बिल्कुल फर्क नहीं पड़ता जिन्हें इस किस्म की फिल्में बनानी हैं या देखनी हैं। रिलीज़ के दिन सुबह-सुबह के पहले शो में लगभग पूरे भरे हुए थिएटर में मेरे बगल में बैठे शख्स ने बताया कि रात की बस पकड़ कर आज सुबह उत्तराखंड से दिल्ली लौटा हूं और घर जाने की बजाय पहले थिएटर में आया हूं। क्यों? जवाब मिला-‘रॉकी भाई की फिल्म तो देखनी ही थी न।’ लो कर लो अब रिव्यू।