Wonder Women: "Wonder whether Anjali contemplated adding more content, coz in its present form it felt inconclusive!!!"

Whenever Anjali Menon has been part of a movie either as a director or writer, it has invariably impressed the audience as evidenced by the handsome box office returns. Her latest release "Wonder Women" however had an OTT release on Sony LIV & despite that there were expectations after all it had a talented ensemble cast. To be frank, she has certainly chosen an interesting subject & provided various variants of it through her choice of characters. But by the end of 80 odd minutes, I couldn't help thinking that though it felt fine it felt rather incomplete. 

As all of you would have naturally guessed, the subject that Anjali has chosen to discuss is pregnancy. She gives us a peek into the prenatal period of various women from different cultural backgrounds & family circumstances. A group of such women had gathered together to attend prenatal classes conducted at the much acclaimed 'Sumana' that was run by Nandita (Nadiya Moidu). The movie is essentially about how these women bond with each other during this period & how they try to help each other to tide over the challenges in their lives. 

There is no doubt that the topic & the manner it was picturized was fine as the audience were given a glimpse of the different challenges that the characters faced. However quite a few of them were not discussed or clarity was not provided. I do agree that it's the director's prerogatory as to whether she wants to give a closure to the character's problems, after all we can't expect all the movies to follow the same template. Anyway the point that I would like to emphasise is that there was both time & scope for a much more detailed look into each of the characters. On the technical side, it was ok though there was nothing that required special mention. Coming to performances, almost all of them have done a decent job be it Nitya, Nadiya, Parvathy, Archana Padmini etc., however in terms of connecting with the audience on an emotional level it would be Amruta Subhash (as Jaya) & Padmapriya. As for the male artists, except for Sandesh Kulkarni (as Jaya's husband) the others were pretty average.

Verdict: Despite the relevance of the subject, I personally felt that it didn't have the adequate content or the emotional depth to make it into a full fledged movie. In effect, it turned out to be rather disappointing (for me) & undoubtedly the weakest among her previous projects. 

Rating: 2/5

Regards...Ben