‘Let’s celebrate oestrogen,’ says Malayalam filmmaker Anjali Menon, on her new film  Wonder Women, releasing on OTT, November 18

The ‘Bangalore Days’ director’s new film has the characters talking mostly in English - “it’s part of our culture”, Menon says

‘The wonder begins,’ said a post by Malayalam actor Parvathy Thiruvothu on Facebook last month, accompanied by a photo of a home pregnancy test. Even as netizens went into a tizzy and congratulatory messages poured in, similar posts began cropping up from the social media handles of other actors — Padmapriya, Nithya Menen and Amruta Subhash — and of playback singer Sayanora Philip and filmmaker Archana Padmini. That is how Bangalore Days director Anjali Menon announced her new film,  Wonder Women, premiering on SonyLiv on November 18.

Scripted and directed by her,  Wonder Women is about the journey of six pregnant women from different walks of life who meet at a pre-natal centre in Kozhikode, Kerala. “It is a subject I have been fascinated with ever since I had my son, who is now 11,” Menon says.

In the movie, each of the women feels differently about her pregnancy, and through them the director explores issues of infertility, the stigma of childlessness, unwanted pregnancies, and so on. “We are not showing an ideal world, we show a real world,” says Thiruvothu, who plays Mini, an introverted character.

Menon’s films, from  Bangalore Days to Ustad Hotel (script) to  Koode, have always explored the ups and downs of relationships. With  Wonder Women, Menon says it is time we “celebrate oestrogen” in the testosterone-driven world of Indian cinema. Edited excerpts from a Zoom conversation:

Right from the time I was a child, I have noticed the buzz every time someone says they’re expecting; there is so much that goes on around them, so much anticipation, hope, excitement. Just the thought of a baby puts a smile on everybody’s face. And why is that? Because they signify hope. They talk to us about tomorrow.

But when it comes to talking about what a family goes through or the unsettling feeling when a baby comes along, we don’t get into those conversations much. There are also so many people today who decide not to have a baby. What is their perspective? What are the feelings behind that decision? There are so many aspects that deserve to be discussed.

I am inspired by the people I work with. And it is a different high when they are people who inspire me off-screen as well. All the [leading] actors in  Wonder Women, as individuals, are driven women who march to the beat of their own drum. It is that energy within them that we are trying to bring to the screen.