‘Wonder Women’ Review: Anjali Menon Delivers A Strong Yet Subtle Feminist Film

While we all have stark differences and are on different paths in our lives, we do share some interesting similarities as humans. This is the essence of Wonder Women.

Just like Samantha’s Yashoda, Anjali Menon’s film brings together a bunch of pregnant women under one roof. But Yashoda mostly dealt at length with surrogate mothers unlike in Wonder Women. However, they both highlight the heartwarming sisterhood and friendships among women.

The mixed bag of six mothers from different backgrounds—Mini (Parvathy Thiruvothu), Veni (Padma Priya), Nora (Nithya Menen), Gracy (Archana Padmini), Jaya (Amruta Subhash), and Saya (Sayonara Philip)— arrive at Nandita’s (Nadiya Moidu) prenatal class.

These unique and beautiful characters who forge a bond over their short stay in Wonder Women are carefully written by Anjali Menon. Each character has its own purpose and is made to breathe in its own space.

Two actors who outshine the rest of the cast are Parvathy Thiruvothu as a single mother and Amrutha Subhash, a woman who has faced multiple miscarriages. Their characterization in the film and their performances brought so much realism to the screen and moved me in unspeakable ways.

Through Nandita who lost her baby during delivery, and Jaya, who has had many miscarriages, the film registers the vital aspect of failed pregnancies—talking about maternal guilt by reiterating that it’s not the mother's fault when birth injuries happen.

With the serene background score by Govind Vasantha, watching the film was like being part of a yoga session where you exhale prejudice and toxicity and inhale goodwill and positivity. The film manages to be both engaging and informative.

The film creates important awareness about the National Health Mission of the Government of India’s "LaQshya" program, a labour room quality improvement initiative whose guidelines assert the right to companionship for women during their baby's delivery.

However, Wonder Women does fall into the traditional approach of glorifying pregnancy and motherhood to the point where women who bear children are called superheroes.

For all the physical and mental pain the women go through, they deserve to be called that, but it also lets us raise a question. Is it implied that you are a bad person if you do not prioritize motherhood over anything else you value, such as your career or your decision to not have children?

There is a brilliant scene in the film that lets the audience empathize with Jaya’s miscarriages and how her understanding husband values their relationship more and says that it is okay to not have children. This progressive view gets passed off in the dialogue. However, through its visuals, which are relatively of more consequence, the film fails to register impact.

We are made to love Nora more as she chooses motherhood over her ambition. Nadia says she feels unlucky because she lost her kid and finds happiness only through another woman’s child who was born on the same day of her labour. Even in the final act, the film settles for a happy ending in which everyone celebrates Jaya's child's safe birth. I was curious about what would have happened if it didn't.

While it was the filmmaker’s writing choice, I think that one of the important stances that the film took with respect to whether children should be the primary parameter for a woman to feel complete (through the dialogue that I had mentioned earlier) could have been more visually effective with the alternate climax.

The women in the film are from diverse socio-economic and linguistic backgrounds. However, I’m sceptical about how Wonder Women will cater to the diverse Indian audience. With dialogue predominantly in English and a few lines in multiple languages like Hindi, Tamil, or Malayalam that come with subtitles, I feel the film restricts itself to English-speaking audiences in the country. While I understand that dubbing it in any one Indian language would remove the film's core identifier of multilingualism, I sincerely believe that a film with such a beautiful message should also reach out to a non-English speaking audience.

In all honesty, Wonder Women is an earnest attempt at exploring women's friendships. It is also a strong and subtle attempt at feminist films. It questions patriarchy all while being inclusive about the men who falter. It opens its arms with an intent to welcome change and not just corner people with regressive thoughts.

It is streaming now on SonyLiv.