Toxic: A Fairy Tale That Forgot to Grow Old
Geetu Mohandas has made a film that is rather like a handsome man walking into a drawing room wearing an extraordinarily expensive suit and then spending three hours telling you how much the suit cost. There is no shortage of ambition in Toxic. There are gangsters, damaged children, beautiful women, fathers and sons, sisters who love too much, lovers who suffer too much, guns, blood, smoke, churches, circuses and enough darkness to make one suspect that the electricity board had disconnected the entire set. And yet, beneath all the decoration, there is a very good story struggling to get out. The story is Raya's. Not the gangster Raya. Not the swaggering Raya. The little boy buried somewhere inside him. That is where Geetu Mohandas has found her richest material. Raya and Ganga are children who have learnt the first lesson of survival early: nobody is coming to save you. Ganga therefore becomes more than a sister. She becomes his shield, his conscience, his accomplice and eventuall...
