Mrs 2025 Movie Review
Mrs. revisits the themes of patriarchal oppression and domestic drudgery explored in The Great Indian Kitchen. While Jeo Baby’s 2021 Malayalam film was raw and immersive, almost documentary-like in its portrayal of the exhausting, repetitive nature of “women’s work,” Mrs. doesn’t suffocate you in the same way. The Great Indian Kitchen was unwatchable at times because of the horror it slowly emanated. You wanted to run away from it. Mrs. doesn’t hit you quite that hard. Arati Kadav’s direction makes it more accessible to a mainstream audience while retaining the core message. In Mrs., for instance, the scenes depicting the pariah-like attitude towards the new bride during the days she’s on her period are almost normalised. The humiliation that the protagonist felt in the Malayalam original is toned down.
What director Arati Kadav has done differently is that from a teacher, she has turned the husband into a gynaecologist. It gives Richa (Sanya Malhotra) a false hope that her husband will ‘get’ her. Well, he might get a girl’s anatomy but is still a caveman when it comes to understanding her emotional and psychological needs. He’s brought up witnessing the casual patriarchy practiced by his father and ends up reiterating it.
The film’s strength lies in its ability to show how patriarchy operates not just through overt cruelty but also through subtle, everyday actions. Richa’s husband, played by Nishant Dahiya, is someone you’d love to hate. At the beginning of the film, he tells her that the smell of the kitchen on her is the best smell in the world. Later though, he finds it a turn off. He dismisses her needs and finds her demands to be inconvenient. Kanwaljit Singh, as the patriarch, is equally compelling, his polite yet oppressive demeanor slowly chipping away at Richa’s spirit. The father and son don’t feel they’ve done any wrong because their actions aren’t challenged ever.
Mrs. also focuses on the complicity of other women in perpetuating these systems. Richa’s mother-in-law, her bua, and even her own mother fail to support her, dismissing her struggles as trivial or something she must simply endure. Richa’s scenes with her mother are particularly poignant, as they highlight the generational cycle of normalised oppression. Her mother finds it odd she’s left ‘home’ for itni si baat – such a small thing. She advises her daughter to “adjust” and apologise for standing up for herself. These scenes underscore the deeply ingrained societal conditioning that keeps women trapped.
Sanya Malhotra essays her role with emotional depth. She subtly captures the quiet despair of a woman who enters a new home with hope, only to be crushed under the weight of unspoken expectations and systemic misogyny. From the moment she steps into her in-laws’ house, welcomed by Kanwaljit Singh’s falsely polite,“You are now our daughter,” Sanya conveys a sense of unease that grows into full-blown disillusionment. Richa’s journey from a hopeful bride to a woman pushed to the brink is heart-wrenching, and Sanya makes every moment of it feel achingly real.
In conclusion, for those who have seen the original, Mrs. may not be as hard-hitting as The Great Indian Kitchen, but it is still a powerful commentary on patriarchal norms, bolstered by Sanya Malhotra’s performance. She elevates the film, and proves once again why she is one of the most versatile and compelling actors of her generation. The movie is currently streaming on Zee5.
