Opinion | Toxic Knows Exactly What It Is Doing To Its Hero. And You May Have Missed It

In Geetu Mohandas' Toxic, a hyperstylised manic dream that unfolds as a series of montages, one scene is allowed to breathe. The male lead is sitting with the woman he fancies. He has just been told off for being self-involved. So, he asks, "Do you think I am a bad guy?" "No," she replies. "I think you are toxic." For a film titled after an adjective, popularised by social media as both a terrible and enticing attribute, the narrative is expected to draw out its lure. Mohandas does that till she doesn't, introducing a jolting subversion to a genre that has been allowed to thrive by impunity.

Indian cinema is no stranger to toxic men. In the Hindi film industry, however, the shift was sudden. Shah Rukh Khan's character in Yash Chopra's Darr (1993) could be regarded as an early prototype. As Rahul Mehra, the actor played a stalker who would stop at nothing to get the woman he is obsessed with. It is an exceedingly unlikable character, offset with a tragic backstory (Rahul is a loner, and the only person who presumably understood him was his dead mother), and the portrayal. In Khan's hands, the fixation took the shape of unchecked love. Although the film reserved punishment for the excess (he dies), Darr brought troubled men to a middle-ground of sorts where they were no longer abject villains, deserving of apathy, but anti-heroes whose heroism was misled but not absent.

Toxic Men's 'Coming Of Age'

The script changed with Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Kabir Singh (2019), the contentious Hindi-language remake of his Telugu film, Arjun Reddy (2017). The problematic man now had the centre stage; there was a thoughtfulness to his character that was hitherto granted to protagonists. Singh was a doctor, in love with a junior. He is obsessive, uncouth, sexist. In one moment, he threatens a woman that he would undress her with a knife. And yet, by the end, he is rewarded with a happily-ever-after with the girl he loved. This marked a shift, and the unprecedented success of the film (Kabir Singh grossed more than Rs 300 crore worldwide) made toxic men a mainstream phenomenon, acceptable and aspirational in their flaws.

Vanga followed this up with Animal (2023), a more disputed film with an even more obnoxious central character. Ranvijay Singh (Ranbir Kapoor) is a man-child who desires only one thing: love and attention from his father. He gets increasingly odious in the pursuit, transmuting into an immoral entity, a beast of sorts. And yet, the supposed purity of his intent is meant to thaw the misgivings others feel for him. Vanga, however, makes a tiny adjustment at the end, where Ranvijay is abandoned by his family, and yet, as the closing credits promise a second part and more bloodshed, it becomes evident that seeking penance for the protagonist is never the goal of this film or the maker. The carnage was the appeal, the mayhem was the point.

In the last couple of years, toxic men, armoured with regressive values, have become a fixture in films across languages. KGF (Kannada; 2018), The Family Star (Telugu; 2024), Saamy Square (Tamil; 2018) are some examples. In that sense, Mohandas' Toxic, till the longest time, unfolds not just as a fabric cut from the same cloth but as evidence of the unending reams that exist in the fold.

It's The Aesthetics, Silly

Set in pre-independent India, the story revolves around Raya (Yash), a gangster hardened by a difficult childhood. His mother was unfeeling, his father was dead, compelling him to face the big, bad world with his elder sister, Ganga (Nayanthara). Mohandas not just adheres to the tropes here, she milks them till they are dry. Like most men in his legion, Raya has grown up with scanty love. Violence is both his coping mechanism and his armour. Women - there are three - are a footnote in his journey as he rampages on a mad march, baying for more blood.

Like most films in this genre, the brutality is depicted with a sleek aesthetic. The hero lights his cigarette with a grenade, slices someone's throat on shards of glass with careless abandon. Men are killed every minute as Raya stands tall, unhurt, unthreatened, and unblemished. The commitment to the genre continues in the second act as the man, tortured by towering loss, undergoes self-inflicted torment. He smokes more than he talks, drinks more than he sleeps. His empire stands, but his sister is dead; so is the woman he loved.

This image of a buffed-up, bearded man punishing himself has several callbacks. Kabir Singh did it, pining for the woman he loved; Ranvijay Singh did it, awaiting his father's love. In the cinematic grammar of these toxic men, this phase is portrayed with the intent of evoking catharsis. As the male protagonist gets diminished and unhinged, standing as a far cry from the man he was before, the onlookers' sentiment is supposed to shift. He has suffered enough should be the collective sentiment, rendering the decision of the film to penalise him or not for his actions, as incidental. Mohandas, however, balks.

A Critique - Almost

The third act of Toxic unravels with breathless speed. Somehow, the act moves to the snowy mountains, and Raya's son, uncared for by his father, arrives and is primed for revenge. Ticket (also essayed by Yash) is comically deranged and dastardly ruthless. He hasn't known love, and by wanting to kill his father, the sole parent alive, he shuts down all possibilities of that. Till here, the script persists with familiarity. Raya's toxicity has leaked into his offspring and will outlive him. It is a cautionary tale, yet the probability of more stylised ferocity makes one question whether evoking caution is the purpose.

Toxic shifts gears here, pulling off a Fight Club-like twist that might feel gimmicky on paper yet translates with inexplicable ache. The father becomes the son; the malice Raya spewed refused to perpetuate as his bloodline, but is revealed to be mixed in his blood. The toxic man becomes a victim of his own toxicity. Mohandas holds this out till the very end, and while that dampens the aim of the film, it is difficult to imagine another outing in this genre, headlined by a male superstar, that goes out on a limb to literalise the critique against hypermasculinity.

With her latest, the filmmaker uses unceasing barbarity as a garb to eke out the grim undersides. In her hands, toxic hypermasculinity refuses to follow the known blueprint where self-prescribed persecution of the man opens the door for deliverance. Instead, she avoids exonerating the protagonist, and in doing so, insists that torment, self-inflicted or not, is a symptom of toxicity and not the roadmap for atonement. The first hostage of a troubled man is he, himself. For, toxic is what toxic does.

(Ishita Sengupta is an independent film critic and culture writer from India. Her writing is informed by gender and pop culture and has appeared in The Indian Express, Hyperallergic, New Lines Magazine, etc.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author