British actor Benedict Garrett, who plays Pedro in Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, has shared a detailed, personal review of the film after watching it in a theatre for the first time, saying it left him needing a day or so just to reflect on what he’d seen.

“I went to watch the film with absolutely no expectations because even though I’m in the film, I didn’t actually know the whole story,” Garrett said in a video posted in his Instagram account. “I knew there was going to be violence, sex, and some pretty extreme stuff. But truth be told, I’m not actually a fan of action films. Though I love acting in them, I don’t normally go and watch action films.”

Benedict Garrett’s central argument is that Toxic is being misunderstood by audiences who walked in expecting a conventional action blockbuster. He said the key to understanding the film lies in its tagline.

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“Toxic isn’t really an action film. The key to understanding it is right there in the tagline: A fairy tale for grown-ups. It’s not a realistic story. It’s not meant to be. It’s not a conventional Indian film in any way. It is a fairy tale. And once you understand that, so much of it starts to make sense,” Garrett said.

He listed the elements that fall into place once the audience accepts the fairy-tale framework: “The masks, the clowns, the violence, the sexuality, the religion, colonialism, white superiority, power, family, trauma. So many toxic ways that we are conditioned by the world that we have inherited, and the choices that we make because of that trauma.”

Benedict Garrett framed Toxic as being fundamentally about psychology rather than action. “This is a film about one man’s inherited trauma, his psychosis, his delusions, and the toxic world that has helped create him,” he said, adding, “And importantly, it isn’t just about the toxicity that men create. Women can be toxic, too. We are all products of and participants in this world that we’ve inherited.”

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Addressing one of the most common criticisms of Toxic—its dialogue, he said, “I have heard criticism that some of the dialogue is cliched or full of cheesy one-liners. Now, I did watch it in Hindi, so I didn’t fully understand everything. But again, it isn’t supposed to be naturalistic dialogue. It’s a fairy tale. How many fairy tales that you were read as a child had realistic conversations in them? That is not the point. The point is the world the film creates and the mirror it holds up to our own.”

Garrett reserved some of his strongest praise for director Geetu Mohandas, saying the film gave him “a whole newfound respect for her” beyond what he already had from working together on set.

“She could have just made another conventional film designed simply to please an audience. Instead, she broke the mould. Directors and filmmakers shouldn’t just reproduce the same formulaic products because they know the audience are already going to like it. Sometimes they should challenge us, disturb us, confuse us, entertain us, and also make us think. And Toxic certainly does that.”

Benedict Garrett said his respect for Yash, which had already grown during the shoot, deepened significantly after watching Toxic. “Watching his performance in this film left me genuinely breathless. I’m an actor in Toxic, so yes, I am obviously biased, but I’m also a viewer. And as a viewer, this film blew me away,” he said.

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He thanked Yash, Mohandas, the production team and the entire cast “for allowing me to be even just a small part of something this bold.”

Garrett closed with a reference to a conversation with a director he had previously worked with, using it to frame the divided response to Toxic as a sign of quality rather than failure.

“A director I worked with previously told me that if he releases a film and most people just kind of like it, they think it’s a good film, then he’s not happy. What makes him the proudest is when people either absolutely hate it or absolutely love it. Then he knows he’s released a good product. And I think maybe this is what we have with Toxic.” the actor said.

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Benedict Garrett moved to India in 2022 and has since appeared in several major Indian productions.