Balaji's Thots

Nayanthara is truly in a league of her own when it comes to Tamil cinema heroines today. While the Samanthas and Kajals are showing up in inconsequential and sometimes downright insulting roles in hero-centric films, Nayanthara is getting films where she not only gets top billing but does many of the things we usually expect from our mass masala heroes. And in Dora, a horror film, she is even more of a mass masala heroine that she was in films like Nee Enge En Anbe and Maya.

Nayanthara plays Pavalakkodi, who starts a call taxi company along with her dad(Thambi Ramaiya). There are a few laughs as he treads carefully around her and tries to be on her good side(the scene where she talks about his marriage is funny). At the same time, the dad-daughter bond that is created is quite effective, something that becomes important later. Through all this, there are enough pointers to tell us that Nayan is the star of the show. When her aunt insults her, she throws out a challenge a la Rajni in Annamalai and walks out in slo-mo to the original scene’s iconic background score. And Thambi Ramaiyah utters a dialog that praises her uniqueness and humility.

The vintage car that Pavalakkodi eventually buys is haunted. There are some nice hints about who is haunting it before it is actually revealed at the intermission point. It is a nice twist and leads to a different kind of horror film. It is a revenge tale but it doesn’t rely on Boo moments or ghostly images to scare us.

There are multiple connections between Pavalakkodi and the car and these give the story a strong emotional core. There is also a trio of bad guys who carry out daring robberies and a cop(Harish Uthaman) who is investigating the case. The tracks eventually dovetail, again in a couple of ways. One, which almost kickstarts a romance before backing out, is a surprise. But the other connection is the main one as it sets Pavalakkodi out to get revenge.

The bad guys are pretty vile. This leads to some disturbing violence against women but also makes us root for them to get their comeuppance. Nayan displays a nice swagger once she becomes the woman thirsting for revenge. She gets her own theme music – which reminds one of Bairavaa‘s bgm – to slo-mo shots of her walking and she gets a whistle-worthy scene where she does an Anniyan by switching between a scared woman and a taunting one. The scene where she tricks the police and the one where she look for her are written well. The climax goes on for too long but the car gets a whistle-worthy scene that works.