Before Toxic took shape, Geetu Mohandas had already made one thing clear about her filmmaking process: the script is only the beginning. “I write something else. I shoot something else. I edit something else. Then the film is out. Then I’m happy,” she had said.
An old video of Geetu Mohandas sharing this candid take on her filmmaking process has resurfaced following Toxic’s release on August 26, offering an interesting lens through which to view the film and the mixed reactions it has received.
Geetu Mohandas' previous directorial work provides the context. Her feature debut, Liar’s Dice (2013), was an intimate film that travelled to international festivals and won the National Film Award for Best Cinematography. Moothon (2019), starring Nivin Pauly, moved between Lakshadweep and Mumbai, combining questions of identity, family and violence. Both films were character-led and carried a distinct sense of restraint.
Toxic, produced by Venkat K Narayana under KVN Productions along with Yash Monster Mind Creation, starring an ensemble cast, moves in another direction. Starring Yash, the film, which saw its release on August 26, places Geetu within a much larger commercial framework, with crime, family conflict, a period setting and an expansive visual design. The challenge here is not simply handling scale, but retaining a filmmaker’s individuality within a production built around a major star.
The early response discuss that tension. The film has found appreciation for its visual ambition, performances and willingness to create a distinctive universe. At the same time, its narrative structure, length and tonal shifts have divided viewers. That makes Toxic less interesting as a question of success or failure and more interesting as a creative experiment.
Geetu has spoken about allowing the film to evolve through writing, shooting and editing. That approach can be liberating, but on a production of this scale, every creative choice also has to work within the larger demands of commercial storytelling. The result is a film that clearly wants to be expansive without abandoning the director’s instinct to make unconventional choices.
This is where Toxic becomes an important point in Geetu’s career. Liar’s Dice and Moothon established her through relatively smaller stories. Toxic asks what happens when that filmmaker enters a far bigger arena. The mixed response suggests that the shift is not without friction. But it also shows Geetu refusing to repeat what she has already done.
Toxic may not offer a conclusive answer to whether her sensibility and mainstream scale can fully coexist. What it does offer is a glimpse of a filmmaker testing her own limits. And that, more than comparisons with her earlier films, is what makes the film worth examining.
Apart from Yash, the film also features Kiara Advani, Tara Sutaria, Nayanthara, Rukmini Vasanth, Huma Qureshi, Akshay Oberoi, Sudev Nair, and Balaji Manohar among others has Ravi Basrur's background score, Vishal Mishra's song compositions, and Rajeev Ravi's cinematography.
