Wonder Women Movie Review & Rating: For a woman, pregnancy is a time when all seasons come and leave their mark. Every pregnant woman goes through physical and mental changes, fear, grievances, difficulties and small joys. For some, it is a time of depression. It is partly caused by the attitudes of those around you who approach pregnancy and childbirth with the assumption that it is a very normal and biological process. However, it may not always be such a ‘normal’ process for everyone. Not every woman’s pregnancy is the same. It is a very adventurous journey where care and full understanding of partner and family members is essential. Anjali Menon’s ‘Wonder Woman’, directed by a group of pregnant women as the central characters, deserves praise for delivering such a message in Malayalam cinema, where films speak from the women’s perspective are rare. At the same time, ‘Wonder Woman’ is also a movie that feels a lot of tension when approached as a movie. The film has been released on Sony Live, an OTT platform.
Coming to ‘Wonder Woman’, the film tells the story of six pregnant women who visit Dr Nandita’s ‘Sumana’. Sumana is an organization that helps reduce the stress women experience during pregnancy, share friendship with women who are going through similar situations and thereby make pregnancy a joyful experience. Nadia Moitu plays the role of Doctor Nandita.
The story begins with a new batch of pregnant women arriving at Sumana. Krishnaveni Balasundaram (Padmapriya), a Tamil native who is always accompanied by her husband, Jaya (Amrita Subhash), a housewife who suffered a lot for her dream of a baby, Saya (Sayanora), a singer, Mini (Parvathy Thiruvoth), a single mother, Nora (Nithya Menon), a careerist born and brought up in Bangalore, and Sumana herself. Gracie (Archana Padmini), a helper and a very ordinary woman, is pregnant in that new batch. These six people are very different in character and life situations. The only similarity they share is pregnancy and the natural worries a pregnant woman has about her growing baby. The story unfolds further by telling the friendship that develops between these different women and their living situations. Finally, ‘Wonder Woman’ ends with a feel-good experience.
The duration of the film is one hour and 20 minutes. Although the film has some touching moments, the major flaw is that neither the characters nor the story is able to connect with the audience beyond that. There is no story arc in the film, but yes in the character creation. The moods and emotions of the characters are nowhere exactly recorded, except that life situations are casually mentioned.
‘Wonder Woman’ is full of artificiality rather than naturalness. Even if the viewer has a doubt that the characters in the film are created by looking at the image of the actors in the public and some characteristics of their own identity, they cannot be wrong. Padmapriya’s Tamil background, Parvathy Thiruvoth’s rebel image, Nithya and Sayanora’s modern girl look – Anjali Menon has imparted all these to the characters. Such prototype characters make their job easier for actors. Parvathy in Mini and Nitya Menen in Nora stand out.
While Manesh Madhavan’s cinematography and Govind Vasantha’s music are excellent, ultimately the lack of story or a coherent screenplay makes ‘Wonder Woman’ an average movie watch. ‘Wonder Woman’ leaves a doubt as to whether the theme, which could have made a good short film if it had been shortened, required a film-like canvas and format.