Bottle Radha (Tamil)
It’s hard to believe that Bottle Radha, a film about alcohol dependency and the trauma it often causes, is director Dhinakaran Sivalingam's debut. It’s a challenging topic to engage an audience already saturated with the pontifications of star actors and political leaders. Dhinakaran’s film found its spark from an incident in his own life, as he mentioned recently. We see the film through the eyes of one working-class family in Chennai, with the filmmaker and his lead actors attempting a delicate balance between bleak humour and heartfelt empathy.
Radhamani, a tile-layer, struggles with alcohol dependency. It doesn’t help that he is not a particularly nice man—at least, he hasn’t been for years. When sober, he’s preoccupied with resenting his nephew, remains oblivious to his wife Anjalam’s (Sanchana) problems, and shows little interest in his children’s lives apart from fleeting moments of affection. Anjalam feels trapped in a marriage where she has no agency and love that has long since evaporated. Radha’s alcohol dependency and absences leaves her vulnerable to the petty power of men such as the local sub-inspector or an older relative.
For a film that holds its lens so close to multiple forms of oppression, it largely avoids making a spectacle of its characters’ traumas. This commendable attempt may have been particularly challenging, directorially, when depicting the abuses of power that occur at many de-addiction centres.
Guru Somasundaram inhabits his role to such an extent that, when watching, you see only Radha and share in the frustrations of his loved ones. Whether inebriated or comically plotting to flee his rehabilitation centre or reaching a tipping point, the actor has you caring about every decision Radha makes.
John Vijay, who played the fan-favourite Daddy in Sarpatta Parambarai (2021), is in a similarly key role in Bottle Radha.
The film explores—with disarming compassion—the cycle of abuse and trauma that a person with alcohol dependency can cause to themselves and others. What happens after someone becomes the cause of another’s trauma? What should accountability look like? What does it mean for a hurt person to reclaim dignity and self-determination?
We see these answers unfold in Radha and Anjalam’s marriage, though there are a few snags in the representation. Anjalam’s trajectory from helplessness to choosing agency unfolds naturally. This is particularly striking because of Sanchana’s matter-of-fact screen presence. The actor’s muted and powerful performance anchors the story, drawing the audience back to reality whenever we are a little too amused with Radha’s antics.
The film doesn’t reduce its feminist moments to punch dialogues. Nor does it draw high-decibel attention to its enlightened views on gender. Bottle Radha’s politics is as organically a part of the story as any other element. This is a far more convincing approach than, for instance, Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Vijay-starrer Master (2021), whose hero prefers to preach rather than self-reflect.
Yet, it is in this path to self-reflection that Dhinakaran’s storytelling falters in some respects. The film struggles to make a point it desperately wants to: that there is a distinction between alcohol dependence, which is a medical condition, and an individual’s decision to seek help.
Bottle Radha highlights the urgent nature of the problems alcohol abuse can cause for the addicted individual and the people close to them—particularly the precarious economic situation a family like Radha’s is thrust into. But convincing real people to seek help is vastly different from painting a world in which alcohol dependence is solved simply by bundling addicts off to rehab centres, regardless of their personal choice.
We have to believe in the difference between shame and making people take accountability for the harm they cause. We need to ask if shame and coercion can ever be healing.
In the meantime, the film excels in both pacing and music. Sanghathamizhan’s editing concludes the pre-interval block with style. The second half has much left to tell, but you sense the weight of that only towards the end. Whether it’s the upbeat ‘Naa Naa Kudikaranan’ featuring singer-songwriter Arivu or the moving ‘Punnagai Kaalam’, Sean Roldan’s music wholeheartedly contributes to building the universe of Bottle Radha.
It must be noted that in 2024, John Vijay, while in an inebriated state, sexually harassed a TNM reporter covering the high-profile Dileep case in Kerala.