I feel like I've been crying for three hours straight, but I haven't shed a single tear. It's a weird, hollow ache behind my eyes. It's 2:17 AM and my room is pitch black except for the "Are you still watching?" on Netflix, which feels like a genuine accusation right now. *Paava Kadhaigal*. What did I just put myself through? It’s an anthology, right? Four stories. I thought, okay, I can handle this. One at a time. I was so, so wrong. It’s not four stories. It’s one long, sustained punch to the gut.
I watched it at home, of course. Where else would you watch something that feels like it’s systematically dismantling your soul? I was curled up on the couch, a blanket pulled up to my chin, creating this little fortress of comfort that the movie immediately started to siege. Netflix just… feeds them to you. One ends, the screen goes black for a second, and then BAM, the next one starts, giving you no time to recover. No time to process. I kept reaching for the remote, thinking I'd take a break, grab a glass of water, but my hand would just… stop. I was trapped. The glow of the screen was the only sun in my world, and it was a cold, dead one.
There's this one moment. From the second story, *Oor Iravu* (That Night). The daughter, pregnant, comes home. Her father is all smiles and hugs, acting like he's forgiven her, like he's accepted her and her boyfriend. He gives her a milkshake. And she drinks it, trusting him. And you know what's in it. You just know. And the camera just holds on her face as the realization dawns, as the drug starts to take hold. Her eyes go from hopeful to confused to terrified. I physically recoiled. I slumped back into the couch cushions like I'd been pushed. I had to look away. I covered my face with my hands for a second, just listening to the sound of her panicked breathing and her father's calm, monstrous voice explaining that he's "fixing" everything. That image, her face in that moment, it’s going to be burned into my brain for weeks. It’s the purest, most terrifying depiction of betrayal I've ever seen.
It reminded me of my cousin. Not the story, not really, but the feeling. My parents were always so… strict with him. He was the oldest, the example. He wanted to be a musician. My uncle and aunt told him that was a "hobby," not a "life." They made him study engineering. I remember this one family dinner, he'd just finished his first semester, and he was so quiet. My uncle was bragging about his grades, and my aunt was talking about the girl they'd picked out for him to marry. And I looked at my cousin, and he just had this… dead look in his eyes. A forced smile. He looked exactly like that girl in the movie, just before she drank the milkshake. Trapped. Anyway, I haven't thought about that in years. He's a software engineer now. Has two kids. I wonder if he's happy. I don't think I'll ever ask.
Honestly, the whole thing was so bleak. I thought I loved it. I thought it was this brave, important piece of art that was holding up a mirror to the ugliest parts of our society. The honour killings, the hypocrisy, the suffocating weight of tradition. But now that I'm sitting here in the dark, the credits having rolled, I'm questioning myself. Was it powerful? Or was it just… misery porn? Was it necessary to show that much pain, that much hopelessness? Did it actually say anything new, or just dramatize the horrors we already know exist? I don't know. My emotions are so scrambled I can't tell if what I watched was genius or just exploitation dressed up in beautiful cinematography.
The at-home experience was key, I think. If I'd watched this in a cinema, surrounded by people, it would have been different. I would have felt the collective gasps, the shared tension. But here, alone in my room, it felt deeply, uncomfortably personal. It felt like a secret being whispered directly into my ear. The sounds were so intimate through my headphones – the rustle of a sari, the clink of a glass, the ragged breath of a person in despair. When the first story, *Thangam*, ended, I just sat there in silence for a full five minutes, the Netflix menu staring back at me, before I could summon the energy to face the next one. The couch, usually my happy place, felt like a witness stand.
And the other stories! Thangam, with its heartbreaking trans narrative, just beautiful and brutal. Vaanmagal (A Daughter's Tale), about a father's obsession with his daughter's purity, which made my skin crawl. And Love Panna Uttranum (Fall in Love, If You Dare), which felt like a brief, almost satirical reprieve before the final gut-punch of O or Iravu . They all circle the same drain: honour, and the devastating things people do in its name. It’s a relentless, exhausting theme.
I feel drained. Completely and utterly emotionally wrung out. I feel like I need to watch ten hours of stupid sitcoms just to feel normal again. I need to see a video of a cat falling off a table. I need to reset my brain. This movie didn't just make me think. It made me *feel* everything, all at once, and it was awful. And also, maybe, a little bit necessary. I think.
Okay. I can't look at this screen anymore. My brain is soup.
9/10. I think. Don't ask me tomorrow.
-Ishaan