Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale Plot:

In this documentary film directed by Amith Krishnan, Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale focusses on the life of actor-producer Nayanthara, her entry into the film industry, the turbulent ups and downs that has been subjected to public’s scrutiny, and culminates into her wedding with filmmaker Vignesh Shivan. The documentary film is sprinkled with interview bytes from members of film fraternity, friends and family, who have seen Nayanthara up close.

Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale Review:

As a study, Nayanthara’s life has an interesting anecdotal example of a paradox. Crowned the Lady Superstar, Nayanthara has been both the guarded and person of open secrets since the time she entered industry. While her personal life has stirred controversies and even found place as headlines on tabloids, Nayanthara has also remained shielded for long enough to stir a mystery around her. Nayanthara is also that person whose natural charm and aura has found a special place among her fandom. So, naturally a documentary on her, has much material and potential to showcase the other side we haven’t seen. But Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale takes a different route.

Contrary to the expectations of how documentaries can be close to reality, candid, and sometimes unstructured, Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale almost seem to have an edit pattern figured out. For example, we begin seeing the tale by watching an old social media footage of Nayanthara and Vignesh Shivan using de-ageing filter on Instagram and posing themselves as children. We see the documentary end with the couple having playtime with their twins, Ulag and Uyir. Sandwiched between this, Nayanthara’s life into the glitzy world of entertainment, including how she was spotted by filmmaker Sathyan Anthikkad for her debut Manassinakkare, her big break in Tamil with Chandramukhi, her fame through Billa, her relationships coming to forefront, almost retirement after Sir Rama Rajyam, and eventually finding her love on the sets of Naanum Rowdy Dhaan; all of them serving as highlights from Nayanthara’s life and rightfully so. But when do we see the lesser known Nanyanthara and her life?

Words like “confident face”, “girl power”, “angel” galore as various other artistes and directors talk about Nayanthara. There are some portions that vividly paint the picture of pain that Nayanthara went through as we see how her family too had struggles, her father being sick. The documentary begins with a natural flow of showing the vulnerable moments from her life, but stops at the point which we have known ourselves. It is too fast to hop to show the pieces of information which is already known to the public. For example, it was at the peak of career, Nayanthara decided to quit cinema to marry a man she was with. In the actor’s words, “I left the industry because the man asked me to”. We are shown as much as we were made to be known when the news broke out, and not more does the documentary explore, nor the aftermath of it. When Nayanthara speaks about being body-shamed at the time of Ghajini, to grabbing the eyeballs of many with her scenes in Billa, the film is careful to stick to a template.

It is interesting to watch Nayanthara, the Lady Superstar, act very much like one of us, in the real-life footage we see of her around her tribe of people. She is fun, casual, candid, and free-going. Had the film shown much of who she is in the real life, rather than make a carefully strung pieces from her life, the documentary would have been one step closer to knowing the human she is. At one moment, we see director Nelson Dilipkumar talk about being that friend of a couple, who tries to patch them up during a fight. Of course, with Nelson’s humour and the relatability of the situation, the portion feels refreshing at the same time connecting. There is also a mention from Vignesh’s perspective of how he was subjected to trolling after public came to know of their relationship. While exploring this is something that could have made the documentary more intimate as it set out to be, the film under utilizes such perspectives to focus on the already made known aspects. In another instance, Nayanthara talks about her first relationship and how trust wins over love. There are sprinkled pieces of information that Nayanthara opens up about her state of mind then, and how she has evolved. But these pieces are limited and Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale, once again goes back to being a film that has almost perfect narrative screenplay as any other film.

Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale Verdict:

Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale is a beautiful tale of a person’s life that is filled with ups and downs witnessed by public’s eye. It is straightforward, real, but also skin-deep and generic.

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