Alfred Hitchcock once said, “ All actors are cattle,” and he’s right. It's up to the director to extract good acting from actors. Pooja is capable of performing intense emotions, and she proved that in Retro.
Directors like Bala are pretty straightforward - they make you act the way they want by provoking real emotions on set. But Karthik Subbaraj is a communicator - he explains the scene, its intensity, and lets the actor perform. As Orson Welles says, “ Acting is like sculpture; A performance, when it deserves to be considered great or important, is almost entirely made up of the actor himself.”
To my knowledge, Retro is the only movie for which Pooja did voice-over ( dubbed) for her character. She has to emote vocally in a language which is not her mother tongue, and she did it so well. “ நீ சிரிச்சா அழகா இருப்ப பாரி” comes in 3 modulations - anticipation, happiness and frustration. She did show variations without killing the soul of the movie - dhamam.
There's this one shot
After “Kannima” wedding song, Surya tries to explain why he chopped his father's hand, as if he's asking her to forgive him. As we know, Surya is a great actor; the whole camera attention was on Surya. Then the camera moves towards Pooja. She gives one deep “stare” - no dialogue, no shouting, nothing. Just a silent, dry stare; that's it.
It's a close-up shot; it captures the intensity of that stare, filled with shattered expectations and frustration born of hopelessness. That stare is genuine, truthful, and natural. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Her stare conveys anxiety, exhaustion, and numbness. It’s similar to a “1000-yard stare” - it’s an emotionless expression when people experience trauma or dissociate. It’s like “ I’m done with you; I have nothing to say anymore”. Paari has disappointed her; she feels detached from him, herself, and everyone around. Her dry stare conveys she’s physically still and isolated from others.
No single dialogue can convey all these emotions clubbed together
Just one stare, one dry, emotionless stare.
Karthik brought a realness out of Pooja that was never before seen.