Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairy Tale Review: Empty Calories

Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairy Tale ends up being a flashy, aspirational celebrity lifestyle doc that is aimed for an evening of popcorn-fueled fan tribute entertainment, observes Arjun Menon.

'First, I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll convince myself that I'm an actress.'

This infamous quote from Marilyn Monroe crossed my mind while watching the new Netflix documentary Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairy Tale.

The documentary tries to situate the industry-heralded 'Lady Superstar' Nayanthara’s strenuous yet inspiring journey to the top, in a male-dominated film industry.

But Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairy Tale is fighting against its form as a wedding video masquerading as a considered document of the rise to the fame of one of our foremost female celebrities.

This duality doesn't quite split the difference.

You can see moments of genuine introspection and vulnerability undercut by the glossy, saccharine aesthetic that diminishes the emotional core of a star's journey into a soapy, self-aggrandizing glitz.

At first, you see the actress warming up to the prospect of charting her career highlights and humble beginnings, and the interspersed talking heads accentuate the truth of her story.

Nayanthara, at this portion, seems comfortable enough to ponder over the follies and high points of her early career in a way that is grounded in some sense of self-awareness.

Sathyan Anthikad, who directed her Malayalam debut Manasinakkare in 2003, appears as a guiding talking head in this doc.

We get details like how her director made her comfortable on sets allowing her to hang out with the cast and crew and get a feel of things, before shooting her first scene. These portions are intercut with her mother reminiscing about her college days and initial struggles to keep the early break from overshadowing an otherwise normal upbringing in a small town in Kerala.

We get a sense of a college-going girl thrown into instant stardom within a short span, working with some of the top talents in the industry and the impact it had on her then.

But the makers don't want to dwell too much on the most important facet of any actor's repertoire, the 'performance' aspect of her work and how she harnessed her unfiltered energy into parts of substance against legendary figures like Sheela, Faazil, Sukumari, Mohanlal and Jayaram in a yet nascent career.

The actress too doesn't seem very invested in delving into her thought process and conception of her early parts.

You can sense them skip through some of her earlier films, as if in a hurry to reach the more juicy section involving the 'alleged' relationship fallouts and media controversy that surrounded the actress in the beginning of her career.

This is where the documentary morphs into a less interesting, empty calorie, therapy-adjacent vehicle, where the actress is forced to linger on uncomfortable parts of her celebrity life and go through the bullet points of media narratives and rumour-mongering that altered her public perception at the time.

Nayanthara's introduction to Tamil cinema is established as a grand gesture of homecoming and you wait for them to finally examine what made her tick in a key role opposite superstar Rajinikanth in the blockbuster Chandramukhi (2004).

However, in these moments of expected grace, the makers re-anchor the focus of the documentary into the tabloid frenzy and hate campaigns that the actress faced for no fault of her own.

The body shaming she had to endure for her physique during Ghajini (2005) and its psychological impact on her is treated like a throwaway complaint that is just tossed out there and left untended.

You never get a sense of what Nayanthara, the artist, represents to Tamil and growing regional language audiences.

The attention to the dramatic flourishes deprives us of a moment of great observational importance, where Anu Vardhan, a popular costume designer who has worked frequently with the actress and is a close friend, lets out a piece of information that could have taken a better-informed storytelling turn in a more level headed, objective celebrity documentary project.

She goes on to explain how Nayanthara is often restlessness in her private life, due to her deep-rooted insecurity of losing out on work, if she relishes too much of her off time with friends and family.

It's a fascinating piece of information about an artist that speaks volumes about the process and mental framework that prompts their work.

But, of course, it is naive of me to even consider this moment of revelation to have any place in this glossy, ham-fisted outing made solely to be a career highlight reel of one of our beloved actors and her hefty marriage.

Nayanthara does address this aspect of her insecurity that prompts her to keep on working but it doesn't go anywhere interesting and we yet again move on abruptly to more tangential non sequiturs.

The sexist establishment looking down doubtfully on a successful female star is fodder enough for a great work of truth-telling about the thinly veiled hierarchical film industry, but that aspect is upended by a corny background score that underlines each punchline delivered by the actress with little to no flair in withholding the inherent charm of her rebellious streak.

The initial framing device of the 'Thirupathi' wedding plans being called off is an interesting framing that comes back halfway through, but the overtly fictionalised recreation of a private conversation between Vignesh Shivan and Nayanthara undercuts its impact.

However, Vignesh Shivan perfectly understands his role as a secondary narrator in the documentary and key figure in her life, whose self-aware presence sharing his experiences of meeting her during the making of his first film Naanum Rowdy Dhaan (2015) keeps things interesting.

The learned, matter-of-camera address by Nayanthara is directly contrasted with the less prepared, raw energy of Vignesh, who seems to be forming his thoughts as he speaks with much excitement and reverence for his better half.

Their interactions and romantic gestures add warmth to the latter half of the documentary though the focus and thematic weights get lost in the romantic flourishes.

The last 10 minutes end up being contrived and striving too hard to tie up all the loose ends with the big climatic wedding.

The documentary documents a woman who defied all odds to make her way through an unfair world.

This would have been a peculiar object that invested in the process and decision-making of an artist but the current one ends up being a flashy, aspirational celebrity lifestyle doc that is aimed for an evening of popcorn-fueled fan tribute entertainment, if nothing else.

Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairy Tale streams on Netflix.