DNA

Nelson Venkatesan's 2025 Tamil film follows a woman convinced her newborn was swapped with another minutes after delivery. Divya has a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, and at first even her husband does not believe her; the hospital, the family and everyone around explain her away through her illness. That is exactly the film's subject: how a person with a history of mental illness goes unheard even when what she says is true. Nimisha Sajayan's performance carries the tension and sustains, for the viewer as well, the uncertainty between her paranoia and her being right. In the second half the film turns into an investigative thriller and the genre template gets ahead of the psychological story, a transition that does not always settle. The explanation that arrives near the end is open to argument in how it represents illness. Who it's for: viewers interested in the new generation of Tamil thrillers and in stories that engage mental illness. Who it's not for: anyone sensitive to representations of psychiatric illness, or avoiding content about childbirth and the loss of a baby.