Achcham Madam Naanam Payirppu Teaser: Akshara Hassan breaks the Myth Of The Good Girl

A 30-second teaser from Akshara Haasan’s Achcham Madam Naanam Payirppu (The Myth Of The Good Girl) was released on September 24. The video has the actor wearing glasses and seated on an antique wooden chair.

The room behind her is tastefully arranged but as the camera draws closer to her face, we hear many voices telling her what to do. “Pavithra, no!”, “Pavithra, yes.”, “Come on Pavithra, what’s stopping you?”, “Pei Pudichudutha?” (are you possessed?), “Ippo than andavan unaku nalla budhi kuduthirkan” (Only now god has given you good senses), “Shame”, “I don’t approve”, these are some of the voices we hear as jazz beats can be heard in the background. As the voices crowd each other, the actor wakes up from her sleep with a gasp. 

According to the description that accompanies the teaser, the film “is a coming-of-age dramedy about a quintessential good Tamil girl.” While the makers have translated the title to indicate “the myth of the good girl”, the literal meaning of the words - achcham (fear), madam (innocent/gentle), naanam (shy/coy) and payirpu (chaste) - translate to mean the patriarchal version of a “good woman”. 

Written and directed by Raja Ramamurthy, the film is being produced by Trendloud. Raja had directed the web series America Mappillai for the Zee5 app. The film’s crew has Shreya Dev Dube for cinematography, Susha for its music, Keerthana Murali for editing and Shanoo Muralidharan for production design. “This will be a coming-of-age-film, probably one of the first ones to explore the female gaze. It was a conscious decision to have a cast and crew with predominantly women, to ensure authenticity,” Raja Ramamurthy said in a statement. 

Others who make part of its cast include singers Usha Uthup, Malgudi Subha, Anjana Jayaprakash, Shalini Vijayakumar, Janaki Sabesh, Kalairani, Siddhartha Shankar, Suresh Menon, George Maryan and Kiran Keshav. The film’s first look was released last week and was received well.