Between Stereotype & Subversion: Middle-Aged Women In Malayalam Cinema
Middle-aged women in Malayalam films are still fighting for screen space, agency, and stories of their own. Here's a look at how Malayalam cinema writes — or refuses to write — women over 40.
Shobana with Mohanlal in a still from Thudarum.
Last Updated: 07.39 PM, Jun 19, 2025
IN Tharun Moorthy’s Thudarum, Shobana plays Lalitha, a woman in her late 40s with a past that hints at far more complexity than the film ever truly explores. Lalitha, now remarried to a former stuntman, leads a seemingly quiet life in a small Kerala town, raising her teenage son and daughter. The film unfolds like a template family revenge 90s drama centred on a righteous everyman, Shanmugam (aka Benz), played by Mohanlal, pitted against a cunning and sadistic police officer (Prakash Verma). The plot pivots around the brewing conflict between these two men, leaving little room for anyone else to matter truly. Predictably, Lalitha's presence, despite being Shanmugam’s wife, is almost obligatory, and is drawn with a broad, indistinct brush: a chatty, affable woman with a Tamil accent who engages in light-hearted banter with her husband.
While these fleeting moments inject some warmth into an otherwise testosterone-driven narrative, they also underscore how little the film allows her to grow beyond the framework of a dutiful wife and doting mother. The few moments that hint at potential, such as the distressing police station sequence where Lalitha and her daughter are verbally and physically assaulted, are quickly co-opted to serve the male protagonist’s journey. So, instead of examining the emotional or psychological toll on Lalitha, the film uses her suffering as a stepping stone to justify the hero’s forthcoming wrath.
Take that crucial scene that has Lalitha glaring at the cop along with a cryptic line about her husband returning to “set things right”—a moment that neatly ties up her trauma in service of the man’s vengeance arc. This reduction of Lalitha into a narrative tool isn’t just disappointing—it feels oddly cynical. Here is an actor with an illustrious filmography and a long-standing on-screen rapport with Mohanlal, but Thudarum merely teases the audience with that legacy instead of truly honouring it. Her casting seems to function more as a nostalgic callback than an effort to provide meaningful representation to a middle-aged woman navigating loss, remarriage, and motherhood. Ultimately, Lalitha becomes another casualty of a formulaic, male-centric narrative that mistakes presence for substance.
In contemporary Malayalam cinema, where well-rounded female characters remain sporadic, and stories centred on women above 40 are even scarcer, Varane Avashyamund (2020) stands out as a quietly radical exception. At a time when celluloid continues to shy away from portraying middle-aged women with nuance or vitality, Anoop Sathyan’s debut offers a rare, celebratory portrayal of a woman in her 50s who is not just surviving but thriving.
Shobana’s Neena is a single mother, a French tutor, a woman with undeniable allure and confidence, who makes a grand cinematic return with a song that unabashedly praises her beauty—a trope usually reserved for much younger heroines or alpha male heroes. What is even more refreshing is that Neena isn’t fetishised or mythologised, but on the contrary, she comes across as grounded, funny, flawed, and deeply relatable. Her glamour is not about reclaiming youth but about owning her age with pride.
One of the film’s most subversive scenes comes when Neena’s brother (played with breezy charm by Lalu Alex) casually informs her adult daughter (Kalyani Priyadarshan) about Neena’s past love affairs. This moment is played with wit and warmth, devoid of judgement or scandal. In doing so, the film gently but effectively dismantles the pedestal on which “mothers” are usually placed in Indian cinema—those deified, desexualised figures who exist solely to nurture, sacrifice, and weep silently.
Though her daughter still wrestles with the ingrained moral conditioning that many women internalise, Neena herself emerges as a liberating figure. She refuses to be defined by the trauma of an abusive marriage or the limitations of her age. Instead, she chooses to love again, unapologetically—an act of defiance in a culture that often considers romance taboo for women beyond a certain age. What makes Neena so special isn’t just her grace or resilience, but her sheer joie de vivre. Considering women are often silenced or sidelined as they age, Neena reminds us just how powerful, magnetic, and life-affirming it can be to see a woman in her 50s not just represented, but celebrated.
While Asha, the middle-aged mother played by Revathy in Rahul Sadasivan’s Bhoothakaalam (2022), is Neena’s spectral opposite, shrouded in silence, bitterness, and emotional rot. A single mother in her 50s, she is visibly weighed down by years of unresolved trauma and unacknowledged grief. She wears drab cotton saris, rarely smiles, is on antidepressants, and the psychological toll is evident in her demeanour. That she works as a kindergarten teacher—an occupation usually associated with cheer, nurturing, and playfulness—adds an ironic tension to her persona. She is a woman profoundly out of sync with her own life.
What makes Asha stand out is not just her internal suffering, but how it manifests in her relationships, particularly with her adult son. Unlike the idealised image of the ever-giving mother that Malayalam cinema has historically clung to, Asha is controlling, emotionally manipulative, and sharply critical. She resents her son's desire to break free, weaponising her vulnerability to guilt him into staying. Her love, if it exists, is deeply entangled with fear and dependency and therefore turns into a toxic, emotionally claustrophobic presence that suffocates rather than supports. Asha is a rare, brave portrait of middle-aged womanhood—one that allows space for darkness, contradiction, and discomfort. In many ways, Bhoothakaalam is not just a psychological horror story; it's a generational ghost story.
On the surface, Leelamma in Christo Tomy's Ullozhukku (2024) fits the mould of the conventional matriarch—devout, conservative, and resigned to suffering. A widow who has weathered an abusive marriage survives by conforming to patriarchy and silencing her pain. But when she learns of her daughter-in-law’s pregnancy through an affair, her disapproval gradually gives way to empathy. What could have been a predictable reaction transforms into a quiet act of solidarity between two women shaped by different wounds. Urvashi brings nuance to Leelamma through subtle gestures—hesitations, weary glances, restrained tone—gradually revealing the emotional thawing beneath her stern exterior. Her transformation is neither loud nor theatrical, but deeply human. In choosing compassion, Leelamma not only frees her daughter-in-law but also liberates a part of herself. Considering that cinema is still hesitant to portray older women with complexity, Ullozhukku offers a rare and resonant portrayal of a woman seeing the world —and herself — anew.
In Jeo Baby's Kaathal: The Core (2023), Omana (Jyothika) is a quietly powerful presence—a woman who has endured decades of emotional and sexual abandonment in a marriage rooted in silence and denial. When she discovers her husband’s homosexuality, she responds not with bitterness but with rare compassion. Yet, her empathy doesn't come at the cost of self-respect. After years of quiet suffering, Omana finally chooses to free both herself and her husband from societal pretence. Her decision, even if delayed, is an act of personal liberation—proof that strength can be silent, and it's never too late to reclaim one's life.
In Rorschach (2022) and Bharathanatyam (2024), Seetha (Bindu Panicker) and Saraswathi (Kalaranjini) represent two strikingly different maternal figures—both draped in mundum neriyathum and rooted in domestic spaces, yet each reclaiming agency in subversive ways. Seetha, fiercely self-serving, chooses destruction as a means to protect her and her sons, obliterating anyone in her path. Saraswathi, on the other hand, responds to her husband’s infidelity not with resentment, but with rare emotional maturity, extending empathy to his lover and forging an unexpected bond. In a powerful act of sisterhood, she centres the women and completely sidelines the man, quietly dismantling the narrative of rivalry so often attached to women in such stories.
It’s telling that in recent Malayalam cinema, most of the few well-written female characters in their 40s and 50s tend to be some variation of the "mother" archetype—complex, layered, even subversive at times, but still ultimately tethered to their maternal identity. This makes a character like Ittiyanam in Aashiq Abu’s Rifle Club stand out strikingly, if not defiantly.
Played with unfettered swagger by Vani Viswanath, Ittiyanam is the kind of female character we rarely see at this age: a confident, divorced woman who is entirely detached from the emotional labour typically assigned to women on screen. She has mean shooting skills, a taste for competition, and a visible disinterest in domesticity. She doesn’t nurture, explain, or conform—she simply exists, with grit and ease, in a male-dominated space. What sets Ittiyanam apart is not just her skill with a rifle or her devil-may-care attitude, but how the film normalises her presence.
At the Rifle Club, she sees herself as equal to any man, and the narrative backs her. Even her ex-husband, in a moment of grudging respect, dismisses her domestic incompetence but acknowledges her shooting prowess—a reversal of the typical domestic validation women are expected to receive. Considering how cinema has always boxed midlife women into roles of emotional anchors, sacrificial mothers, or grieving widows, Ittiyanam feels almost transgressive in her detachment from these narratives. She is a female alpha in her 50s, who is neither punished for her independence nor used as a symbol.
Going forward, we need characters with greater depth and complexity, showing them not just as caregivers but as individuals with their desires and struggles. Only then can Malayalam cinema truly reflect the diverse realities of middle-aged women and tell richer, more honest stories.