Some films do allow a note of sympathy into the bitterness of Nadira's characters. Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai almost does, constraining her character Kusum in an arranged marriage to an overly humble doctor who is in love with another woman. But Kusum blows whatever sympathetic capital she has when she interferes with her husband's work and hastens a patient's death. Julie, though, frames Nadira's character Margaret's acerbic nature in a broader social context, that of an Anglo-Indian woman who feels rejected and betrayed by Indian society at large. As a result, that character is one of the most layered that Nadira ever played.
In Julie, Margaret has some real love for her daughter that occasionally shines through the bitterly tarnished surface. But in masala movies from Ashanti to Amar Akbar Anthony, Nadira played irredeemably sour older women who exploited fresh young girls rather than in any way nurturing them. She reprised the iron-fisted madam trope in, among others, Hanste Zakhm. There, when the heroine threatens to leave the brothel and build herself a respectable life, Nadira regales her with emotional abuse — where will you go? who else will have you? She then calls in a strong-man to drive her points home with his fists. As he advances on the terrified girl, Nadira closes the door on them, oozing that evil smile.
Even when she is not a courtesan, Nadira's characters often have a hint of sexual liberation, with an overtone of desperation or sleaziness. In Ismail Merchant's Bombay Talkie, Nadira plays Anjana Devi, an aged-out film star who copes with the passing of her glory days by surrounding herself with handsome young men who hope to be stars themselves. ("He's like a bear," she growls of one of them as she lustily rubs his chest. "Shut your buttons before I lose my mind.") The superstar Vikram (Shashi Kapoor) gushes over her with an almost reverential innocence. But what when they are alone tells a different story; she presses herself into his arms, and he peels her off him with something like pity. And yet, when he comes to her lovesick, Anjana Devi offers Vikram practical and detached advice about moving on. Anjana Devi is both horrible and wonderful to watch, train-wreck compelling, sleazy but strong, willful but powerless.