To celebrate actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu, who has been a part of a myriad of excellent projects from the Hindi and South industries, Subhash K Jha lists her best performances… so far!
Eega (2012):
Samantha rocked Rajamouli’s show long before Baahubali. This is a love triangle with a twist. It’s a story of a man, a woman, and…a fly! By now, we’ve all heard of Rajamouli’s Eega cracking box office records in Tamil. The Hindi version comes to us with a tremendous pre-release expectations. Shall we just say, we were Eega to see this film? On paper, Makkhi must have sounded like a corny adventure saga about a fly’s vendetta spree against a man who would go to any lengths to win over a girl who rebuffs his every gesture. Sudeep’s effectual destruction by the fly has to be seen to be believed. To bring variations into the fly’s various means of torturing his adversary to death requires Herculian plotting and planning. Director Rajamouli excels in giving a human life to the fly. Samantha Ruth, as his object of adoration, is sweetly effective.
Super Deluxe (2019):
Although Vijay Sethupathi in Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s Tamil game-changer Super Deluxe as a transgender man coming out, to the utter confusion of his little son, was the show stopper, Samantha in another corner of this brilliant film as a woman whose lover dies underneath her while making love was a howl. Samantha’s comic aptitude had a rare outing in this one. She also got to work with the Malayali maverick Fahadh Faasil, though she outclassed him in every frame. Little wonder they have never come together again.
Yashoda (2022):
This is the kind of cinema that even Katharine Hepburn would find hard to live down. The plot—deep breath, here goes—is about a fertility hospital devoted to surrogate motherhood where some real cheesy hanky-panky is going on. Samantha plays a pregnant surrogate with a rare mix of vim and vulnerability. Her action sequences were heart-in-the-mouth stuff long before Honey Bunny caught up with her.
Majili (2019):
Her best performance to date in Majili reflects her strengths as an actor and human being. She is an empowered woman, yes. But not a flag-waving feminist. There is a sense of tragic continuity, a resigned acceptance of fate, if you will, in the way the tangle within the love triangle plays itself out in Majili . The Telugu film about losing love and finding faith is a lengthy and fairly satisfying ode to the human heart and its vagaries. Samantha’s Sravani almost brings her fatally damaged husband back from the dead. That the real-life wife and husband play this troubled couple is a stroke of irony that gives Majili its added tinge and texture of intrigue and poignancy. Samantha immerses herself so deeply into her character that it almost seems like she is determined to take her screen marriage into places that her own marriage would hopefully never go into. Alas!
Shakuntalam (2023):
Samantha looks every bit the ecologically and emotionally evolved princess in exile. The special effects swathe her in a luminous light. Samantha captures the soul of Shakuntala and then sets it free. Every element in the storytelling conspires to give the age-old story a sensuous, elegant spin. It is time to reclaim our heritage. It is time to tell stories that every Indian child should know. Let’s stop the inflow of imported garbage to entertain our children. Show them that beyond Disney and Harry Potter, there exists a wealth of Indigenous stories waiting to be told. Rajamouli has opened the door. Gunasekhar’s Shakuntala walks through that door with confident steps.
The Family Man 2 (2021):
Samantha’s digital debut was a smash hit. During this season of the hit franchise, the action moves to Chennai, where Rajalaxmi, a.k.a Raji, and her rebel friends are planning a massive attack. The most gripping sequences in the entire narrative spectrum recur each time Samantha’s Raji is on screen. She is ominous in her silences. You know, when she erupts, there will be hell to pay. The story of her stint as a fearless soldier in Sri Lanka and a cowering sexually harassed civilian in Chennai and …well, whatever happen as the plot explodes into a show of strength between Srikant and his team’s Task Force and the rebels, has a life of its own. I would love to see a feature film based on Raji’s character. Samantha appears as a Tamil rebel affiliated with a terror organization. It is a welcome change of pace for the actress known to play sweet, cute characters in her native tongue, Telugu. Samantha takes the plunge from her mother tongue to a murder tongue in Tamil with a feral force. She was the USP of the second season.
Citadel Honey Bunny (2024):
Samantha delivers a strong argument for the shero without the crutches of the hero. A lioness protecting her little daughter from dangerous elements on both sides of the law, Samantha slayed the part. This was her second tie-up with Raj and DK after The Family Man. Raj-DK could have named Honey Bunny ‘Family Woman’ as this one was all a mother about protecting her family, and boy; Samantha rose to the occasion as the first truly awe-inspiring Shero of the Indian OTT platform. To set the record straight, Raj-DK’s Indian avatar of the Citadel streaming on Amazon Prime Video is vastly superior to its original American franchise. And yes, the bright young Kashvi Majumdar, who plays Nadia, the character in this prequel who grows up to be Priyanka Chopra in The Citadel, is as good an actress as Priyanka. Citadel: Honey Bunny is a lesson in casual tautness.
