Magalir Mattum is a 1994 Indian Tamil-languagesatirical film directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, produced by Kamal Haasan, and written by Crazy Mohan. The film stars Nassar, Revathi, Urvashi and Rohini. It revolves around three women deciding to gang up against their lecherous office boss who constantly harasses them. Haasan wrote a story inspired by the American film 9 to 5 which Mohan then expanded into the screenplay of Magalir Mattum. The film was Thirunavukarasu's first as an independent cinematographer, P. N. Satish worked as the editor, and the was composed by Ilaiyaraaja while the lyrics were written by Vaali. Magalir Mattum was released on 25 February 1994 and became a commercial success, running for over 175 days in theatres. For her performance, Urvashi won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award Special Prize for Best Actress. The film became a milestone in Tamil cinema for the topics it addresses such as workplace harassment and male gaze, and is regarded as an early example of the Me Too movement in India.
Plot
Janaki and Pappamma are two women employed at a fashion export company. Janaki works as a typist to support herself, her husband and their child as her husband lost his job in a factory. Pappamma is a housekeeper who lives with her drunkard rickshaw-puller husband and earns for both their living and her husband's drinking expense. Sathya, a computer graduate and designer, joins the fashion company as a fashion designer. All the women in the company face a common threat in the form of manager G. K. Pandian, a womaniser. He harasses his female employees in one way or other, but the women tolerate his torture due to their family circumstances. Pandian tries to move close with Sathya and unaware of Pandian's intention, Sathya at first dines with him. This isolates her from other employees. Pandian tries to impress her by presenting a silk saree, but Sathya rebukes him by saying what he has done is harassive. This gains her the friendship of Janaki and Pappamma and Sathya understands about Pandian. Due to Sathya's friendship, Janaki becomes bold enough to face her supervisor Madhavi and insults her in front of everyone. Hence, Madhavi takes revenge by hiding an important file which is under Janaki's custody. But Pappamma helps her by revealing the truth to Pandian. The three women are frustrated by Pandian's attitude and seek to end his misdeeds towards them. Janaki unknowingly mixes rat poison in Pandian's coffee instead of sugar and gives it to him. Pandian falls from his chair and becomes unconscious. Sathya finds and admits him in hospital. Janaki realises that she mixed rat poison in the coffee, thinks Pandian drank it and reveals this to her friends. All three rush to the hospital and hear that a patient is dead due to strong dosage of poison, not knowing that it is a terrorist who died by drinking cyanide, that Pandian actually fainted due to a minor injury and has recovered. They kidnap the covered corpse and take it to Sathya's room only to find that they have kidnapped the terrorist's corpse. Hence they decide to return it to the hospital; the police recover the corpse and the trio leave silently. Pandian returns to work; on learning of what happened, he threatens to report the trio to the police if they do not obey him. He demands to spend each night with all three women in his private house. The trio appear to assent, but once there, they trap him. Sathya takes charge of acting manager and with the help of Janaki, Pappamma and other employees, brings many changes in the office. Sathya soon receives information from the head office about the boss's visit and gets tensed as Pandian is kidnapped. The trio decide to confess about what happened in the office and rush to the airport to receive the boss who they have never seen. Madhavi overhears them and rescues Pandian. Once at the airport, the trio miss the boss, who leaves with Pandian. The trio chase him to the office. In the office, the boss finds differences and Pandian says that he is not responsible for them, only the trio are. But the boss reveals he is aware of the happenings there and appreciates the trio for their innovative ideas. He decides to leave charge of the office to them and transfers Pandian to Andaman, gives remedy for Janaki's husband's job in his friend's factory and Pappamma's husband's job as watchman in their school. When he inquires about Sathya's marriage, Janaki says that she has a dream boy drawn in the computer. Sathya shows her dream boy to him and all are surprised that Sathya's dream boy is their boss. The boss asks Sathya to marry him, and she accepts his proposal.
After being inspired by the American film 9 to 5, Kamal Haasan wrote a story, narrated it to Crazy Mohan and asked him to develop it into a screenplay. Haasan was not sure "if we could turn it into a two-hour film", so a subplot featuring a terrorist's corpse was one of the things Mohan included to expand the screenplay. This subplot was inspired by a play of Mohan's, in which his troupe member Ramesh acted as a dead body. Mohan's wife wrote the screenplay while he was explaining every scene. The title Magalir Mattum, which translates to "Ladies Only" had been suggested by Mohan because buses carrying this text "were quite popular then and people would instantly connect to the subject of the film." Singeetam Srinivasa Rao was hired to direct, while Haasan produced the film under his banner Raaj Kamal Films International. Haasan wanted P. C. Sreeram to be the cinematographer, but since he was busy with Thiruda Thiruda, his assistant Thirunavukarasu, who later became known as Tirru, was recruited instead. The film was Thirunavukarasu's first as an independent cinematographer; he previously assisted Sreeram in Haasan's Thevar Magan. Thirunavukarasu has stated that Srinivasa Rao "almost summarily dismissed" him because he was not used to working with novices, "but I was able to prove my technical worth in the opening shots, with a lot of help from Kamal, who had immense faith in my capabilities". Velraj worked as an assistant cinematographer in the film. P. N. Satish worked as the editor, and Haasan's then-wife Sarika designed the costumes.
Casting
For the three female protagonists, Srinivasa Rao wanted actresses who were good friends in real life, so he cast Revathi, Urvashi, and Rohini. He also noted "When we were doing their combination scenes there was so much life in it because they were friends." Nassar was chosen to portray G. K. Pandian, his first humour oriented character. Mohan was initially apprehensive about casting Nassar in a comical role as he was known mainly for serious negative roles, but Haasan remained adamant. Rohini was offered to play the role of Pappamma, a de-glamorised servant; she recalled that she agreed to do it "without a second thought" and since she grew up in Chennai, she "didn't have to work on the slang". Urvashi recalled that Haasan asked her to "choose the one you'd be interested"; she liked Pappamma due to "rawness that stems from her family situation. But I settled for Janaki because she's a character that audiences relate to". Revathi was cast as Sathya; as with Rohini and Urvashi, she agreed to act in the film without second thoughts. Director P. Bharathiraja and poet Vairamuthu were initially approached for the character of office supervisor Thamizhavan; however producer Kalaipuli S. Thanu appeared in that role, and Magalir Mattum was his only film as an actor. Haasan cast Nagesh as the corpse of the terrorist, and he himself appeared in a cameo as the office boss towards the climax. Though the character was originally written as a woman, the cast wanted Haasan in that role.
Filming
Magalir Mattum was launched in the first half of 1993. It was one of the few films launched during a period of a ban imposed on film production in Tamil Nadu by distributors' associations. The set of the office was established on the second floor of a building that was being constructed at the then Vauhini Studios. Years earlier, when Haasan was filming for Swati Mutyam at a coastal area in Andhra Pradesh, a body washed ashore. This led to a commotion, and Haasan went over to see what it was all about. This incident was used in Magalir Mattum as a plot point. While filming the scene where the corpse is being carried by the protagonists, Nagesh was asked by Srinivasa Rao to keep a smirk on his face throughout the sequence. Srinivasa Rao told him to let his body go totally limp; this proved difficult for both him and the three female leads, as they had to carry his entire weight. The stunt scene involving Nagesh was filmed on a set erected at Campa Cola. The team waited for three months to film the song "Karavai Maadu" as all three lead actresses had to be in it. It was ultimately decided to film the portions separately with Nassar depending upon the availability of actress on that day. Raghuram, who choreographed the song, completed it in such a way that "the shots could later be edited and made to look like they all shot together".
Themes
Magalir Mattum revolves around workplace harassment and male gaze. Writing for Sify, Sowmya Rajendran said the film addresses many issues that women employees face, such as "feminization of poverty, the problems of a middle-class, new mother who has to get back to work to make a living" and the "anger of a single, talented woman who has to keep her temper in check if she’s to retain her job". The protagonists – Sathya, Janaki and Pappamma – are representatives of three different classes of society. Urvashi has stated that the film's idea was to show that "women, irrespective of class difference, face the same problems in a patriarchal society." She described Janaki as exhibiting "a typical middle-class mentality", Pappamma as her opposite who "carries a bold and brazen attitude", and Sathya as "an independent woman who's very precise about things".
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was composed by Ilaiyaraaja, while the lyrics for all the songs were written by Vaali. It was released under the label AVM Audio in December 1993. Ilaiyaraaja, using the technique of M. B. Sreenivasan, composed the title track as a choir song. Urvashi was initially displeased with "Karavai Maadu" because it contained lyrics she considered were degrading, but after Vaali explained to her why he wrote those words, she was convinced.
Release
Magalir Mattum was released on 25 February 1994. No distributor was willing to buy the film since it featured no romance or a hero; as a result, Haasan had to distribute it himself. Despite this, the film was a commercial success, running for over 175 days in theatres, and becoming a silver jubilee film. Urvashi attributed the film's success to the fact that it "told the sufferings through comedy", and may have been rejected by audiences if it was a serious film. For her performance, she won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award Special Prize for Best Actress.
Reception
On 25 February, Malini Mannath of The Indian Express called the film "a welcome breath of fresh air". She went on to praise Nassar's performance, saying that "his expressions are a treat to watch he can do comedy too with ease". She also praised the performances of Revathi and Rohini and complimented Urvashi "with her sense of comedy who come out the best the humour and punchlines coming naturally". The review board of Ananda Vikatan said the filmmakers must be appreciated for presenting a high-class comedy entertainer without any vulgarity or double entendre dialogues and becoming a benchmark for humour. They said that among the three female leads, Urvashi had lived through the character of a Brahmin girl and made them laugh throughout the film. The review board praised the cinematography and wrote that the filmmakers certainly moved a few steps ahead in their effort to present a neat and entertaining comedy film, and gave Magalir Mattum a rating of 44 marks out of 100. K. Vijiyan of New Straits Times wrote on 12 March, "Ladies, Kamalhassan has made this movie just for you" and praised the performances of the lead actors.
Other versions
Magalir Mattum was dubbed in Malayalam as Ladies Only, and in Telugu as Adavallaku Matrame. The film was remade in Hindi as Ladies Only in 1997 by Dinesh Shailendra. Seema Biswas, Shilpa Shirodkar and Heera Rajagopal were cast as the female leads and Randhir Kapoor was selected to reprise Nassar's character. Haasan produced the film and appeared as the corpse. Though the film was completed, it failed to have a theatrical release.
Legacy
Magalir Mattum attained cult status, and became a milestone in Tamil cinema for the topics it addresses, being regarded as an early example of the Me Too movement in India. Nassar's character of Pandian attained iconic status, and later became "the face of all memes and posts related to harassment at the workplace."
