Thudakkam (Malayalam)
In a world where women are often at the cusp of violence, self-defence can offer confidence, and sometimes, even survival. But director Jude Anthany Joseph’s Thudakkam presents that confidence as the ultimate road to empowerment. In his attempt to elevate Vismaya Mohanlal beyond her hefty surname, Jude ends up weighing her down with it, never allowing the actor or the film to stand on their own feet.
Vismaya plays Meenu, a young woman who moves to a hillside town with her father (Sai Kumar) and her pet dog. A series of coincidences soon lands her in trouble, invoking the passionate martial arts practitioner in her. From there on, it is all about how she tackles her demons: both the ones within her and those knocking at her door.
Thudakkam’s trajectory is engaging up to this point. The lack of nuance becomes apparent only when Jude becomes adamant about making an example of Meenu’s life for every woman out there. Unsurprisingly, he ends up clutching at the lowest hanging, most generic solution for women’s safety – martial arts.
This is not to say that there is no adrenaline rush in watching Vismaya kick the villain, sending him flying out the door. It is an on-screen setting almost exclusively reserved for men, and the sense of redemption in seeing a woman there is almost ecstatic. The only trouble is that the film positions self-defence as the epitome of empowerment, insisting that it is on women to garner that strength.
Thudakkam’s simplicity in putting the burden of self-protection on women without ever commenting on the roots of the violence that follows them is almost whimsical. Even the cops in the film are in awe of how self-sufficient Meenu is.
However, what appears most jarring is Mohanlal and his extended cameo. In a film that insists on empowering women, his character looms large above Vismaya’s. This ultimately undercuts her agency, contradicting the very sense of selfhood the film encourages its women audience to cultivate.
Jude’s reminders about Vismaya being Mohanlal’s daughter feel more like blind fan service than genuine attempts at meta humour. At several plot points, you almost wish men did not venture out to make ‘women-centric films’, if this is what their idea of liberation looks like.
Vismaya performs the stunts with commendable agility. Her acting does lack finesse at several emotional moments, but it is unfair to pass verdict on her potential yet. Especially considering that several star kids, most of them men, including her brother, have been handed multiple chances to establish themselves.
Ashish Joe Antony, who is also relatively new, makes an impression as the hardened criminal who cannot be negotiated with. Sai Kumar ensures that the dad-daughter dynamics work out well.
The music and the visuals are the kind we are familiar with in most cookie-cutter ‘family films’.
It is a cruel world, and the perils are stacked up higher for women. That Jude tries to engage with this conversation is appreciable. But Thudakkam looks at women’s reality through a male lens, insisting that they can only break out from an otherwise ideal character mould when it is time to be a hero.
What the film neglects in the process is the wholesomeness of existence that women are entitled to, beyond their trauma, grief, and preparedness to escape violence.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.