We’re familiar with the ins and outs of message films at this point, and Ravi Teja’s Irumudi has no qualms in identifying itself as one. It also shouldn’t, considering it stands behind a rather potent one. It’s that young girls should be taught no fear — this can be fear of men, fear of shame, fear of parents or even the fear of being wrong. Ravi Teja’s Trinath is a gentle parent who staunchly sticks by this message as he raises his daughter Manikanta (Baby Nakshathra). Now this is an important and deeply intentional memo for a country grappling with a profound challenge in women’s safety, delivered through its most accessible medium: commercial cinema. Yet its message is undermined by the familiar cycles of gendered tropes and male saviourism that it falls back on.
It’s a bit frustrating because Irumudi has a genuinely moving premise. Trinath (Ravi Teja) and Kaveri (Priya Bhavani Shankar) raise a self-sufficient and emotionally competent 12-year-old girl. Manikanta is surprisingly unlike any “film child” we’ve seen. She’s obviously “spunky” and “outspoken” (in line with the adjectives films often use as descriptors for young characters), but she’s strangely perceptive for a kid. She picks up on mood shifts among family, looks out for her female friends, and not unlike any mass hero, she has a nose for smelling the injustice in the vicinity. But this isn’t to say she's a child written like an annoying quasi-adult. Shiva Nirvana treads gingerly in this area and spends a lot of time ensuring she isn’t a cliché. She’s her father’s little princess, but the film is more deliberate in how it approaches their relationship when parental love can often blur into control.
Irumudi is essentially a story of fatherhood, specifically applying to girl dads. Nirvana chooses to take us through this journey through the story of two fathers in a village reflecting on this responsibility: On one end is Guru Swamy (Sai Kumar), who believes fear is necessary to protect young women as they navigate patriarchy and harassment. On the other is Trinath, who believes in giving his daughter the freedom to confront a cruel world on her own terms. Now we obviously know which side the film is leaning towards, but it’s refreshing to see the film stick by this idea, sometimes with surprising nuance. We see this not only in how these daughters communicate with the world, but also how they navigate men and forms of respect. While one cowers in fear even around her father, the other finds the strength to confront not just other men, but also sometimes her own father.
Scenes involving Ravi Teja and Nakshathra are written with an endearing wishfulness that we often don’t see in such depictions. But as if a bubble prodded with a needle, the illusion comes undone in the second half. There are two things Trinath loves most in the world: his daughter and the deity he names her after: Ayyapa. Every year, Trinath makes the trek to Sabarimala, which means for the duration of his spiritual vow, he cannot drink or beat up devil-incarnate men in the village.
The film doesn’t explicitly engage with the politics surrounding Sabarimala and women, but it inevitably uses women’s bodies to construct a narrative of male saviourism. No woman is safe in Aathur, and the film uses an exaggerated narrative to tell a story about patriarchy and self-preservation. Cyclical stories of abuse get unnerving after a point, making us wonder if any commercial film can ever learn to leave female bodies alone for once. For a village with such a high crime rate, there is not a cop in sight. The film veers away from ideas of liberation to punitive justice very quickly, and Irumudi is stuck in the trenches for a bit.
Twists appear in succession a little too quickly after another, chipping away at the solid tension and drama the film almost managed to create. The film does send us home with the story of a relentless young girl who dares to dream of a better world alongside her father, even as she, along with us, has to first contend with men and their cruelty first.