Nayanthara Beyond The Fairytale review: Wholesome story of successful woman in love

Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairytale has everything that fans would want to see and know about their favourite star. But, it isn’t just that. It is also a star’s story, from being an accidental actor to rising to the heights of superstardom. It is Nayanthara’s story of navigating through both personal and professional setbacks, and emerging victorious, every single time.
Nothing is kept hidden here. The stories of sorrows are told, and the moments of happiness are shared. The Netflix documentary doesn’t show Nayanthara as the most invincible being in the Tamil film industry. Rather, it shows her vulnerabilities, emotional battles and failures as well.
At around 82 minutes, Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairytale looks crisp and doesn’t mince its words in explaining why the 40-year-old is regarded as the ‘lady superstar’ of the Tamil industry. There are bytes of her fellow actors, directors, family members and friends, celebrating her work and telling us exactly how she did it.
The best part about the documentary is how it balances the idea of showing Nayanthara as this powerhouse of a woman who is self-made, and who never chose to bow down to the rules constructed and adored by men in a male-dominated film industry. So, you get Telugu superstar Nagarjuna talking about how ‘the Nayan he knows’ would never back out. You see director Atlee calling her the lucky charm of his movies, and you’ll get her husband, Vignesh Shivan, just expressing his gratitude to God for bringing her into his life.
Actors Rana Daggubati, Vijay Sethupathi, directors Vishnuvardhan, Krish Jagarlamudi and Nelson Dilipkumar (Vignesh’s close friend) also make notable appearances.

The idea is to celebrate a woman, and at the same time, make her look human and not a goddess. In the first part of the documentary, sprawling from her birth into a defence family to her rise as an actor, we see many fellow women from the industry briefly explaining the impact that Nayanthara left on them. Especially her mother, Omana Kurian, who emotionally describes Nayanthara as her and her ailing father’s biggest support system. “No matter wherever she’s shooting, she calls thrice a day to check on her father and me. I pray for everyone to get a daughter like her,” she says, wiping tears off her face.
There’s Parvathy Thiruvothu, who’s been at the centre of Women in Cinema Collective, telling all that Nayanthara was making her own decisions and carving her own path when “being a powerful woman was akin to witchcraft”.
There’s Tamannaah Bhatia appreciating Nayanthara for showing how to be a successful woman on her own merit in an industry where the parameter to judge a woman’s success is to gauge which popular male actor she has worked with in her films.
Veteran actor Radhika Sarathkumar, who appears in many frames in the documentary, mentions Nayanthara’s never stop, never-give-up attitude towards life, irrespective of the magnitude of her hardships. And then there’s Nayanthara herself, who admits that she doesn’t know how to not move on.
From her failed relationships to recounting the time she was body-shamed, she talks about it all in detail. At one point, the documentary almost pauses to help you read the headlines of the news articles criticising her for her appearance in a movie: “An annoying, overweight Nayanthara, whose rolls of fat appear to be a doing a Mexican wave across her waist in a song sequence (sic).”
The incident is smartly contrasted with a glimpse of her taking a stroll around a pool wearing a black bikini in Billa, starring Thala Ajith. Nayanthara narrates how she didn’t want to prove a point with that glamorous appearance, but was just doing what her director asked her to. Both times.
It’s in the second part of the documentary that you see the real ‘fairytale’ being designed. Her life as the reigning superstar, and her love story which seems both organic and dreamy at the same time. The couple narrates the story themselves, sitting on a bench in their thoughtfully designed house, where all Vignesh does is be careful not to ruin the furnishings. They laugh, share anecdotes from their dating times, and how their plans for getting married at the Tirupati Temple were changed at the last minute.
There’s a certain rhythm to Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairytale. It is a self-produced piece, backed by Rowdy Films and Wikkiflix, owned by Nayanthara and Vignesh, respectively, and everything about it speaks to you easily. You resonate with the idea of seeing a tough woman getting all the success and love, and then finally getting her happy ending (or new beginning). In that sense, though, it doesn’t really show anything ‘beyond the fairytale’. It does appear like a fairytale in all its glory.
Nayanthara, the actor, the daughter, the friend, the wife and the mother, makes you cheer for her. She embodies power, humility and dreaminess – all equally – and you can’t resist but let yourself immerse in it. The wedding brings all the emotions together as you come to the end of the documentary. You smile. You see Shah Rukh Khan there, and you smile a little more.