Parvathy Thiruvothu is a nightmare for the film industry. She questions misogyny in superstar films, she demands toilets for women on the sets, she comes up with phrases like ‘OMKV’ to swat away detractors, she talks about pay parity, she puts up less-than-perfect pictures of herself on Instagram, she wears ‘buddhijeevi’ glasses, she signs only films that she believes in.
She’s a nightmare because she doesn’t play the good girl to please the patriarchs of the Malayalam film industry – and she’s still here and she’s still speaking. What could be scarier?
Perhaps the title of her first film describes it best – this is an actor who is Out of Syllabus (2006) in the Malayalam film industry. Parvathy played a supporting role in the film when she was just 18. That same year, she played a pivotal role in the Rosshan Andrrews teen drama Notebook. Parvathy appeared as Pooja, a smart schoolgirl who later develops mental health issues. The film, which dealt with teen pregnancy, was noticed for handling a taboo subject and the newcomers in the cast received praise from critics.
However, it was in Kannada cinema that Parvathy first played a lead role. She starred opposite the late Puneeth Rajkumar in the romcom Milana in 2007. Though she was barely out of her teens, Parvathy essayed the role of a young woman caught in a marriage she doesn’t want. Her performance as Anjali and the chemistry she shared with Puneeth were among the reasons for the film becoming a blockbuster.
Milana ran for an unbelievable 500 days in theatres, and Parvathy did a few more Kannada films, including Prithvi with Puneeth once again.
She soon made her Tamil debut with Poo (2008), playing the role of Maari. Unlike her previous roles, she was playing a woman in a rural setting in this romance drama. Parvathy exhibited her ability to slide into any character, completely altering how she looks and behaves on screen. Maari is one of those women with dreams of love and romance that are quashed under societal pressures and expectations. She is in love with her cousin (Srikanth) but ends up marrying another man – still, she makes do with what life gives her until she realises certain truths.
The Sasi directorial received mostly positive reviews, and Parvathy, who carried the film on her shoulders, was duly noted as an actor to watch out for. In her review for Rediff, critic Pavithra Srinivasan said, “The credits may state Srikanth as the hero but as he himself has rightly observed, it's almost entirely Parvathy's film. As Mariyammal, an innately joyous girl who undergoes life's trials to become a stronger woman – she's superb.”
Another Tamil release, Maryan (2013), in which she acted with Dhanush, proved that this was an actor who could hold her own. The Bharatbala film had Parvathy playing a woman who is obsessed with a man but is constantly rebuffed by him until she isn’t. Describing her performance in the film, critic Baradwaj Rangan wrote, “The happiest surprise of Maryan is that its heroine is every bit as good, another exquisite subject for close-ups. (And there are many of them.) Just watch her when she learns from Maryan’s best buddy Sakkarai (Appukutty) that Maryan may be in love with her after all. Or when she finds out, through a phone call, that he’s been kidnapped by mercenaries in Sudan, where he’s on a two-year assignment. Or even in the seemingly unplayable scene where, after Maryan makes his escape there, she senses his impending freedom. This latter development is the stuff of melodramatic epics, and that’s what the director is after: a love story that transcends continents.”
In Malayalam, three films that released in quick succession made her a star to reckon with – Bangalore Days (2014), Ennu Ninte Moideen (2015) and Charlie (2015). Anjali Menon’s Bangalore Days was a multistarrer and Parvathy played the memorable RJ Sarah, a young woman in a wheelchair who lives life to the fullest. This was among the few times that disability, usually a subject that attracts pity or is depicted as a curse, was portrayed with such dignity on screen. Watch the scene when Sarah confronts Aju (Dulquer Salmaan) for stalking her and then gets annoyed when he says that he was actually interested in her friend. With her curly mop of hair and glasses, RJ Sarah was a distinctive personality who emerged from Parvathy’s talent for shape shifting.
If she was a sophisticated urban woman in Bangalore Days, she was the opposite in Ennu Ninte Moideen, a tragic love story directed by R.S. Vimal. Based on a true life story about an interfaith couple, Parvathy’s portrayal of Kanchanamala won her accolades. Her big black bindi and plaited hair with ribbons transformed her into a traditional woman who yearns for the forbidden. This is a film about extraordinary passion and along with Prithviraj, Parvathy made a convincing case for such love at a time when the transience of the emotion was being explored in cinema.
In Charlie, she was the adventurous Tessa who flees a marriage that’s being thrust on her, and goes in search of a picaresque hero (Dulquer Salmaan). Directed by Martin Prakkat, the film made Parvathy a fashion icon. The big nose studs and glasses that Tessa wore gave the actor a bold and unapologetic look – one that went well with her real-life personality.
2017 was a significant year in the Malayalam film industry. In February that year, a prominent woman actor from the industry was abducted and sexually assaulted by a group of men in a moving vehicle. A few months later, the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) was established with Parvathy as one of the founding members. The probe in the actor assault split the industry into two, with the police alleging that Dileep, a big male star, was the mastermind behind the conspiracy to humiliate the survivor. With the WCC firmly standing behind the survivor, its members increasingly faced ostracism from the patriarchal film industry.
Parvathy had just delivered a critically acclaimed film at the time – Mahesh Narayan’s Take Off (2017), which was based on the real-life story of Indian nurses who were captured by the ISIS in Iraq. Her gritty performance as Sameera fetched her a slew of awards, including a Special Mention at the National Awards. She also became the first Malayalam actor to win the coveted Silver Peacock at the International Film Festival of India. Ideally, the young actor should have been flooded with offers after this, but her involvement in the WCC meant that she lost out on work opportunities, just like the others in the sisterhood.
But a defiant Parvathy refused to back down. She has always maintained that she knew there would be a price to pay and that she was ready to pay it for the sake of future generations. Her commitment to the cause was evident when she waded into controversy the following year, calling out the misogyny in superstar Mammootty’s 2016 cop film Kasaba. She was speaking at a panel on the representation of women in cinema at the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), and she said that she was disappointed by the misogynistic dialogues in the Mammootty film. This was nothing short of blasphemy in the Malayalam film industry – a young woman actor questioning one of its biggest male superstars!
The Malayalam film industry had already turned its back against the WCC members, and Parvathy’s comments made her a target for vicious harassment. This included rape and death threats and disdainful posts by her own colleagues in the industry. Mammootty maintained silence in public even as Parvathy was dragged through the mud for merely voicing her opinion in a relevant forum. Again, Parvathy did not retract her comments. It would have been easier to apologise and move on, but she stood her ground. Mammootty later said that he had spoken to Parvathy about it, and that he was for “meaningful debates”. In 2021, Mammootty and Parvathy acted together in Ratheena’s Puzhu as brother and sister. It was an effective reply to rabid fans who still hadn’t “forgiven” her for her comments.
Still, Parvathy’s filmography since 2017 is slim for an actor of her calibre. This is partly because she’s choosy about the films she does and partly because of the isolation that the WCC continues to face. In 2018, she made her Hindi debut with Tanuja Chandra’s enjoyable romcom Qarib Qarib Singlle in which she starred with Irrfan Khan.
Some of her notable films in recent years include Manu Ashokan’s Uyare in which she delivered a riveting performance as an acid attack survivor, Aashiq Abu’s Virus which was on how the Nipah virus was brought under control in Kerala, Anjali Menon’s Koode in which she played a woman who leaves an abusive marriage, and Sanu John Varghese’s gently paced thriller Aarkariyam.
Parvathy’s outspokenness has meant that she also gets questioned a lot more than others in the film industry. She was heavily criticised by Dalit feminists for playing the role of Rachiyamma in Venu’s short film in the Aanum Pennum anthology. Rachiyamma, in Uroob’s short story on which the film is based, is described as a dark-skinned woman and Parvathy doing the role was seen as appropriation. The actor, however, has continued to voice her views and engage in debate about social issues and the representation of women in cinema. She has also spoken up about several personal experiences – from being assaulted as a child to stalking and the discrimination that women in cinema face. At a time when celebrities employ PR firms and are exceedingly careful about the construction of their public image, Parvathy’s ‘no nonsense’ attitude is refreshing.
On November 18, her film Wonder Women, in which she shares screen space with Nithya Menen, Padmapriya, Sayonara Phillip, Nadiya Moidu, Amruta Subhash and Archana Padmini, will be released on SonyLIV. Directed by Anjali Menon, the film is about a bunch of pregnant women who meet at a prenatal class. It feels like an apt title for a film with women – in the cast and crew – who have broken more than a few rules to get where they are. That we don’t get to see Parvathy on screen as often as we should is a stark symbol of the patriarchal society that we live in. But when she does appear on screen, it is a reminder that some struggles demand warriors who are in it for the long haul. They may lose battles, but they will win the war.
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