THE STORY – Two childhood friends grow up inseparable in rural Tamil Nadu, a world shaped by caste, violence, and toxic masculinity. Their lives are transformed by the arrival of Dorothy, a woman whose compassion quietly challenges the world around them.
THE CAST – Sananth, Rishikanth & Keerthy Suresh
THE TEAM – Karthik Subbaraj (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 150 Minutes
Karthik Subbaraj’s exuberant style is on full display from the opening minute of his latest film, “Dorothy”. In heavily faded colors somewhere between sepia tones and black and white, a man with a tear-stained face smokes a cigarette, leaving a long trail of ash going all the way down to the filter. When the man eventually speaks, he says six words that will haunt the rest of the film: “Subbu is dead. I killed him.” When we then flash back and witness the history between this man, Karthi (Rishikanth as an adult), and Subbu (Sananth as an adult), that turn of events seems impossible: The two men first met as boys, as Subbu defended Karthi’s honor from the bullies beating him up. The two become fast friends and eventually resolve to become gangsters like Subbu’s father and brothers.
Karthi and Subbu’s home lives are nearly mirror images of each other: Karthi is being raised by a lower-caste single mother, while Subbu is raised in a wealthier house of men, his locally infamous gangster father and criminal brothers. Because the boys grow so close, their parents become surrogate parents, which works out much better for Subbu than for Karthi, as Subbu’s father refuses to let Karthi marry above his caste. The boys’ temperaments reverse as they get older, with Subbu now the one who cries at the sight of blood, demanding to know how Karthi can remain unmoved as men beat and drag a woman away for daring to love outside her caste.
Subbaraj’s exploration of gender norms in India’s Tamil region strikes a chord as Karthi and Subbu grow up and become the people they were meant to be. The brutal violence against women shocks when it comes, but the denigration of men who don’t live up to the culture’s standards of ultra-masculinity cuts to the quick with its casually cruel nature. Beyond their diametrically opposed home lives, Subbaraj further interrogates the culture’s treatment of women through Dorothy (Keerthy Suresh), Subbu’s brother’s wife from another region. She takes to both boys in different ways, showing them kinds of kindness missing from their everyday lives. When tragedy befalls her, however, it sends Karthi and Subbu on wildly different trajectories, leading to a second half that explodes with even more expressive visuals and vibrant storytelling.
While the story’s maximalist melodrama requires a bit of a leap of faith in its second half, Subbaraj’s empathetic storytelling encourages the same in its audience, gently pushing them to consider a character turn rarely seen in cinema from any country, not just India. Rishikanth and Sananth, too, deliver performances of vivid emotional clarity and depth, fully challenging societal expectations of masculine displays of emotion. Pulling inspiration from traditionally masculine genres (Westerns, crime sagas, martial arts films) but filtering it through a modern sensibility that has a more expansive view of what it means to be a man, Subbaraj creates a cinematic experience like no other, an exhilarating ride that bucks expectation at every turn. S. Thirunavukkarasu’s cinematography references all those old genres while creating a far more expressive look than most of those films had, full of bright colors and impactful camera movement; the story’s shift into its second half is roughly marked by a spectacular oner that fully brings you into the characters’ headspace. Ilaiyaraaja’s score similarly embraces the sound of the past while bringing it into the present, with a few catchy original songs, to boot.
Among the visual arts, cinema is uniquely transporting. It doesn’t merely show you a world; it immerses you in it, making you live with the characters and feel what they’re feeling. A film like “Dorothy”, with its boldly emotional lead performances, expressive cinematography, and engaging, surprising story, can make people reassess their views on life through its empathetic nature. The story at its heart, one about the long and winding road to become your innermost self, is one that’s been told forever, but never in this particular way. The film’s form sometimes mirrors that long, winding road, with detours that seem unnecessary. But everything in the film is built to pull you deeper and deeper into Karthi and Subbu’s world, until you can do nothing but surrender to their story. By the time it ends, you will likely be as changed as they are, a better person for having seen it. What more noble goal could a film have than that?
