Best Performances Of May 2023

This is a monthly series where we highlight performances from the film and streaming universe that caught our eye. Since Film Companion watches widely, we decided to curate this list to foreground exceptional work, even if these actors did not have the proverbial spotlight on them.

Gulshan Devaiah, Dahaad

Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video

It’s more complicated to play the Nice Guy than a twisted villain in female-driven stories these days. The thing about these super-righteous and liberal-minded men — like the small-town SHO Devi Lal Singh in Dahaad — is that they’re often too good to be true. Their goodness is suspicious, like they’re either tailor-made by woke creators or they’re hiding something predatory beneath their shiny surface. But Gulshan Devaiah does such a fine job as Devi — the platonic mentor-boss of the show’s protagonist, SI Anjali Bhaati (Sonakshi Sinha) — that you genuinely believe that this agenda-less and pure man exists. Married to a conservative woman himself, the well-educated Devi is a misfit in his own environment, delivering sensible advice to his teenage kids, almost as if he spends his nights on Twitter learning about How To Be The Perfect Man/Dad. He’s not virtue signaling either, such is Devaiah’s conviction in the integrity of his character. 

Manikandan, Good Night

Theatrical release

With Good Night, Mandikandan has proved yet again that he can deploy some serious boy-next-door charm as much as he excels at emotional heavy lifting in serious dramas. No one does the gentle, adorable goof as perceptively as him. Watch out for the scene where as Mohan, a stand up IT guy with a snoring problem, he recollects a high school memory in between heavy sobs. The incident itself might come off as trivial for many, but Manikandan embraces Mohan’s tenderness with such levels of honesty that it turns us into an empathetic bystander to this core memory. 

Tovino Thomas, 2018

Theatrical release

We know exactly the arc his character is going to take the moment we learn that he was someone who deserted the Indian Army. Right from the way his neighbors see him as a coward to the way he does odd jobs to save face, we know right where his character is headed. Yet, he brings an insane amount of likability without ever allowing us to see him as a superhero. His image as a real-life hero during the 2018 floods then further adds a layer of the surreal where we fail to distinguish what is real and what is not. All of this contributes to making him the soul of a film that is already brimming with dozens of interesting protagonists. So when the film ends with his memorial being placed at the exact town center where he was once the butt of all jokes, it hits us emotionally but it also gets us to introspect for doubting the genuine intentions of a genuine person.  

Also Read: The Good Men of Zoya Akhtar And Reema Kagti

Vijay Varma, Dahaad

Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video

As Anand Swarnakar, Vijay Varma is hardly breaking any new ground. He's already played the sadist misogynist in his breakout role in Pink (2016), Netflix series, She (2020) and an exceptional lead turn as Hamza in Darlings (2022). And yet, Varma brings subtle tics to each of his aliases in Dahaad. The economy with which Varma shifts gears between his avatars is eerie, encapsulating what makes him such a chilling criminal. He’s visible to everyone, and yet easy to look past. Most people see him, but they also don't.