Victoria Film Review - A Sanctuary Disguised as a Parlour
Even before Sivaranjini’s Victoria drew me into its quiet storm, I couldn’t help remembering Victorian poetry. Those poor “feminine voices” in 19th-century verse, tiptoeing around their own desires because male poets were too busy imagining fragile women wilting under the weight of their emotions. Even Elizabeth Barrett Browning wasn’t entirely spared from producing heroines shaped more by the era’s restrictions than by authentic womanhood.
And while watching Victoria, that old academic memory floated back sarcastically, of course. Because here was a film that doesn’t shout about feminism, doesn’t posture, doesn’t lecture, but simply exists inside a women’s world so honestly that all those Victorian men would probably have fainted.
Sivaranjini’s Victoria unfolds almost entirely within a small, bustling beauty parlour, an all-women enclave with a “No Entry for Men” signboard that doubles as a thematic manifesto. The space is warm, chaotic and ordinary, yet it becomes the emotional spine of the film.
Victoria (a pitch-perfect Meenakshi Jayan) begins her day already bruised, literally and emotionally. She must run the parlour alone, manage demanding customers and deal with the fallout from her father discovering her interfaith relationship the previous night. Her boyfriend is no better evasive, indifferent and emotionally draining.
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Yet she walks into work, ties her apron and gets on with life, because what choice does she have?
One of the smartest touches in Sivaranjini’s debut feature is the rooster. yes, the actual rooster that an elderly woman leaves in Victoria’s care for the day. In a salon that bars men, this tied-up bird becomes the lone “male” presence. And what a metaphor it is: a male entity that takes up space without contributing, a creature that cannot help in any way and yet still demands accommodation, a symbol of patriarchy quietly placed in the corner of a women-only refuge.
Sivaranjini’s Victoria unfolds almost entirely within a small, bustling beauty parlour, an all-women enclave with a “No Entry for Men” signboard that doubles as a thematic manifesto.
The way Victoria lies beside it in exhausted silence, her phone ringing unanswered beside her, says more about her life than any monologue could. The rooster doesn’t move. The men in her life don’t either. First-time cinematographer Anand Ravi turns the parlour into a living organism. With long, fluid, unbroken takes, he creates a sense of immersion, a choreography of intimacy where conversations overlap, hands move, scissors snip, women laugh and cry. The salon’s many mirrors become visual metaphors, silent witnesses to Victoria’s unraveling.
The spatial constraint becomes the film’s greatest strength. There is nowhere for Victoria to run except the tiny restroom where she collapses in private, until she no longer needs to hide.
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The film’s sisterhood is not dramatic; it is plain, everyday and therefore profound. There we meet a pregnant regular played warmly by Sreeshma Chandran, a woman visiting a parlour for the first time in decades (Jolly Chirayath), equal parts nervous and excited, and a customer sneaking in during a family crisis, carrying guilt and vanity in equal measure.These connections form quickly and naturally. In a world where women are constantly judged, these fleeting female friendships feel like small islands of grace.
One of the most haunting moments is built on sound, not visuals. As Victoria hurriedly waxes a customer’s arms, the ripping of each strip dissolves into the echo of a slap, the one her father gave her the night before. We hear the male voice. We hear the insults. We hear the violence that the film refuses to show directly. It’s devastating not because we see pain, but because we hear the memory of it.
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The film’s emotional pinnacle arrives quietly. When Victoria’s old friend, decades removed walks into the parlour for a pedicure, their casual banter slowly cracks until one question about a bruise opens the floodgates. The lights go out.
We don’t see Victoria cry. Maybe we hear her break; maybe we don’t. We see her silhouette trembling on a laptop screen. It is one of the most cathartic scenes, capturing the kind of female friendship that Victorian poets never imagined and patriarchal men rarely understand.
The film’s sisterhood is not dramatic; it is plain, everyday and therefore profound.
Sivaranjini makes a bold structural decision: men are never fully shown. They appear only as shadows, ringing phones, video-call icons or disembodied words that bruise. Their absence is deliberate; their presence unavoidable.
Victoria doesn’t perform empowerment. It quietly, confidently centres women, letting their mundane struggles speak louder than any manifesto. By focusing on labour, emotional burnout, invisible wounds, fleeting solidarity and everyday resilience, Sivaranjini delivers a more powerful feminist statement than many films that shout slogans.
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Clocking in at just 84 minutes, Victoria is tight, thoughtful and astonishingly assured for a debut. Sivaranjini treats the beauty parlour as a sanctuary, a confessional, a battlefield and a home. This is filmmaking rooted in empathy, everyday detail and a deep understanding of women’s emotional labour.
Victoria is not a story told loudly. It is whispered through tears, laughter, broken phone calls and the soft hum of a parlour fan. Meenakshi Jayan delivers a career-defining performance, the ensemble cast brings unmatched authenticity, and Sivaranjini announces herself as a filmmaker with unmistakable clarity and compassion.
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It is a quiet triumph, a film that understands that sometimes the most radical thing women can have is a room of their own, and sometimes, a rooster tied quietly in the corner.
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