A 90s period film about two best friends and their upbringing in a crime family becomes a surprising story about identity in a hyper-masculine world. Karthik Subbaraj’s Dorothy, premiering at TIFF 2026, explores the impact of toxic masculinity through many lenses and ultimately delivers a hopeful message of love.
Dorothy begins with two friends whose boyhood friendship develops as the two become young men, thugs in a crime family in a small town in Tamil Nadu, India. Starting with wildly different personalities, the boys’ impact on each other changes them into young men who are loyal to each other, over anything else. The film explores the impact of men being raised in households with and without women, and society’s expectations of them when it comes to fulfilling those strict gender roles.
Dorothy Review: Two Childhood Friends, One Unexpected Turn
From acclaimed filmmaker Karthik Subbaraj, Dorothy tells its story about friendship, identity and love through one of Indian cinema’s most familiar structures: the best friends on the other side of the law, who have nothing and no one, but each other. Where that takes them is one of the most fasincating cinematic journeys I’ve experienced. What’s unexpected is where that story leads. And despite these cases of exploration and examination of the culture, it’s also a total masala-fest with action, melodrama, and an unexpected romance that is an homage to what audiences come to expect from Indian cinema.
It’s hard to talk about Dorothy without revealing the turn in the second half. The movie, while billed as this gritty period piece set in the 90s, transitions into a transgender origin story that is incredibly heartwarming and unlike anything I, personally, had experienced before. It becomes a story of self-perception, trauma and grief, and how an unlikely relationship can trigger an awareness of who we are, or who we want to be. It also tackles how friendships can evolve, focusing on a twist on the most common love story trope in cinema.
A Masala Movie With A Revolutionary Message
Karthik (Rishikanth) and Subbu (Sananth) are childhood friends who meet when Subbu has to fight off bullies to save Karthik as boys. This friendship sees both boys experience the other’s life and the influences that shaped them. Coming from a crime family, Subbu is an alpha male in a house of men who, it’s implied, had a hand in the deaths of both his mom and sister. In turn, Subbu then experiences Karthik’s life with a loving mother who dotes on him, and even accepts Subbu as her new son.
As the boys grow into young men, their roles switch. Karthik becomes this badass enforcer for Subbu’s crime family, not hesitant to throw fists or even kill for the family that took him in and gave him purpose. Whereas Subbu seems to have lost the nerve for the violence as he’s gotten older. Dorothy really starts as this sweet exploration of that influence, the masculine and feminine, or lack thereof, and how that shapes the outlook of young boys as they mature.
Exploring Toxic Masculinity, Identity And Friendships
The story explores the loves and lives of these boys, as they face hardships, relationships, and how they each handle them. With Subbu, maybe for the first time, experiencing that maternal love and encouragement from an unexpected source: his brother’s new wife, Dorothy (Keerthy Suresh).
Subbaraj is an incredible filmmaker who takes audiences on this journey of brutal violence, unexpected sweetness and a completely different take when it comes to a specific culture within South Asia that is often ignored or still considered taboo. The second half of Dorothy is where all this culminates in this amazingly well-told story of transformation, love and friendship.
Rishikanth and Sananth Deliver the Film’s Most Powerful Performances
Subbaraj directs awe-inspiring performances from all its main leads. Rishikanth is incredible as the friend who is tough and loyal, despite sometimes struggling to understand his friend. Karthik is almost standing in for the conventional male archetype who struggles with emotions and not understanding concepts beyond his scope. But his friendship can survive anything.
Whereas Sananth steals the show in a performance that does most of the heavy lifting. The actor, whom I haven’t seen a lot of due to my admittedly novice experience with Tamil cinema, is a powerhouse. Subbu is the heart of Dorothy, who transforms the most in the story, but also makes the audience feel the helplessness, the turmoil of someone struggling to accept who they are, within their family, in society, themselves, and even in the eyes of their best friend. It’s heartbreaking, heartwarming and had me in complete tears for the last 40 minutes of the movie.
Karthik Subbaraj Explores Uncharted Territory With A Message Of Hope
Dorothy is told from the perspective of these two characters. The movie doesn’t have a third-person narrative track that reveals more to the audience than what these characters know and experience. So the second half turn in the film has this transgender revelation which is meant to be as surprising to the audience as it is for the other characters in the movie. It’s almost like writer-director Subbaraj is taking audiences through the same shock of a coming-out journey that close family and friends must feel. And he doesn’t hold back.
Subbu’s trauma, his grief, is something Subbaraj makes sure the audience feels firsthand. The shock of the reveal isn’t a spectacle, but rather a slow-burn that brings the audience into the emotional arc of the character. So even as audience members, you feel the rawness of the reveal and feel personally invested in the lives of these characters.
Dorothy Review: Final Verdict
Ultimately, Dorothy becomes a story of love, acceptance and a realism that showcases stories and lives that others shy away from. It’s a surprisingly emotional story of two friends and how their dynamic changes when one of them becomes who they are truly meant to be. It’s the kind of cinema that, while not perfect or what can be considered a ‘masterpiece’, challenges society’s accepted perceptions of gender, love, and identity, in a way that feels long overdue.
Dorothy premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.
Have you seen Dorothy yet, or does Karthik Subbaraj’s genre-bending turn have you curious? Tell me what you think in the comments, and follow me on X at @theshahshahid for more reviews from TIFF 2026.
