What Is the Story About?
Six pregnant ladies enroll at ‘Sumana’, a prenatal class conducted by Nandita during their last weeks prior to delivery. Each one of them carry their own baggages, issues and partners with different band-widths. In their quest to know and embrace changes and new life, they begin to re-discover themselves and the true meaning of partnership and family.
Performances?
Nadiya Moidu’s Nandita is the backbone of the film. She aces her cheery, confident and vulnerable moments equally. Not to forget that her proficiency in multiple languages really helps the dialogues. Padmapriya and Nithya Menen are bright sunshine balls. Parvathy Thiruvothu does have few moments but not enough for her own calibre as an actor. We’ve seen her doing similar roles many many times before.
Analysis
Anjali Menon writes and directs ‘Wonder Women’, where six pregnant women arrive at a pre-natal class, run by Nandita (Nadhiya Moidu), learn more about child-birth and eventually discover sisterhood.
The film begins with Nora (Nithya Menen), Veni (Padmapriya), Saya (Sayanora Philip), Gracy (Archana Padmini), Jaya (Amruta Subhash) and Mini (Parvathy Thiruvothu) introducing themselves. From different walks of life, carrying different personal and professional baggages, the one thing they all have in common is the fact that they’re all expecting mothers. Nandita takes the women through some breathing exercises, games, awareness sessions etc as they slowly begin to know more about themselves, parenthood, partnership, and family etc.
There’s a closer look at the lives of all six women during their classes at Sumana. An ambitious Nora’s career drive undergoing a change, a single mother Mini going through a divorce and emotional unavailability of family, Jaya who has already had miscarriages being stressed about her ongoing pregnancy, a typical low-effort partner and regressive in-law of Veni, Gracy struggling to make ends meet whilst pregnant and Saya for whom the experience of pregnancy has been nothing but overwhelming.
Besides addressing the importance of care-giving, care-taking and fear during pregnancy, Anjali also tries to talk a little on pressing topics like hindi imposition, low-effort partnership and the need for assertion and acceptance. While all this is good and happening, Wonder Women as a film fails to live up to its expectations. Largely, because of the weight of having a star-cast of this magnitude, and because of the theme the film tries to focus on.
Excluding credits, Wonder Women has a modest run-time of 73 minutes. There’s nothing really happening in the film. There are no high-points, or conflicts or organic character progression to root for. The ambitious need to stick to an ‘ altruistic feel-good film’ genre blend, somehow dilutes the necessity of character arcs a film of this kind should’ve had. In its pursuit to beautify sisterhood, what Wonder Women does is indirectly glorify pregnancy with outdated dialogues at places. By the time the climax approaches, there’s imminent fatigue in an already wafer-thin writing. What you see is an anthology short film that tries to be too good and exudes pseudo-positivity.
That said, there are some genuine moments of warmth in Wonder Women. But these are sadly sporadic. The actors are very charming and lets you sit through the whole film as they’re clearly having fun. Despite having dialogues written in multiple languages including English, Malayalam, Tamil, Marathi, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada, one wouldn’t feel the flow hampered. Credits where due, there’s a certain viscosity in which the languages gel well with each other and none of that feels forced.
In short, Wonder Women is a loss of opportunity. One would expect much more than a run-of-the-mill anthology short treatment in a feature film, with a cast and theme like this. You can still give it a try after a stressed out week, because ‘feel-good’ isn’t very hard to consume.
Other Artists?
Archana Padmini’s Gracy is also likeable. She is naive, excited and nervous. Her banter with the actor who plays her husband onscreen was nice. On the other hand, Sayanora’s Saya is the weakest written and performed character in the entire ensemble cast. The actor who plays her partner also brings nothing to the table. None of the other supporting characters stand out in any way. Male actors understandably don’t have much to do in Wonder Women.
Music and Other Departments?
Govind Vasantha’s music isn’t a stand-out but does an adequate job in maintaining the essence of the film. Similarly, Manesh Madhavan’s cinematography doesn’t go out of the box or try something new, but aids the narrative’s warmth well.
Highlights?
Star-cast
Theme
Drawbacks?
Under-written characters actors
Under-utilised actors
No conflicts or high moments
Under-utilised premise
Did I Enjoy It?
Yes. In parts.
Will You Recommend It?
Yes. With huge reservations.
Wonder Women Movie Review by Binged Bureau
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