Mrs. director Arati Kadav on changing climax from The Great Indian Kitchen: 'In today's time, we cannot make political statements very easily' | Exclusive

Filmmaker Arati Kadav, known for her distinctive storytelling and innovative approach to cinema, takes a bold leap into the world of domestic realism with Mrs.—a Hindi adaptation of the acclaimed Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen. Starring Sanya Malhotra, the film delves into the silent struggles and quiet resilience of women trapped within the confines of patriarchy.

In this exclusive interview with OTTplay, Arati Kadav discusses her journey in adapting such a culturally significant film, her directorial vision for Mrs., and the nuances of portraying gender dynamics in contemporary Indian cinema. She also opens up about collaborating with Sanya Malhotra, infusing her unique cinematic language into the story, and how Mrs. challenges the way we perceive everyday oppression.

ALSO READ: Mrs. review: Sanya Malhotra's The Great Indian Kitchen remake offers a stirring yet diluted take on patriarchy 

Continue reading as Arati Kadav takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of Mrs., illuminating the creative and emotional layers that shaped this compelling narrative.

Mrs. has been out for some time now. How has the audience response matched your expectations?

I'm very happy that the film is connecting to so many people. And it is also unprecedented for me, because you're always worried when you make a film—whether people will like it or accept it—but the fact that they're connected to it so much is amazing. It's gone beyond my expectations, and I'm really enjoying it. However, it's also bittersweet, as many women are writing directly to me, and some of the personal accounts I'm hearing are heartbreaking. The silver lining is that they're recognising that they are in an oppressive setup—because a lot of times, women have a tendency to accept that this is their fate. I got married to this person, and now, if I can't do this, this is my fate. Now they're questioning that fate, or they're wondering if that fate, or some conditioning, or if the system is faulty. So that is good, and these conversations are very important—I think so. We've sparked all the right conversations everywhere, and there are very funny memes around—Valentine's Day ke din sabka breakup ho gaya hai, because sabne "Mrs." dekhi. (laughs) I am enjoying those kinds of things also.

Did the reactions vary between audiences familiar with The Great Indian Kitchen and those experiencing this story for the first time?

There are two very distinct sets of people. There are people who have watched the original and are loyal and true to it. I love that, because I also am a huge fan of the original, and that's why I adapted it for North India. But there's also a very large set of audiences who said that this film is a more accessible version. They really wanted to show the original to their mothers, and the only way they could show it was when it was made in the form of Mrs. Of course, there's also a third audience, who really feel that the essence of the original is intact—and because we were lucky that we had the original to build on. So they feel that we have also slightly gone beyond. So there are three sets of audiences—one; one person obviously says the original was the best. There are others who say that the remake is best. I believe in the third audience, who says both are very good—one is for the Malayalam audience and one is for the Northern audience.

The Great Indian Kitchen was a powerful film, but it was ultimately a man's interpretation of a woman's lived experience. As a female filmmaker, did you feel there were nuances or aspects of a woman's reality that were missing or not fully explored in the original? How did you approach Mrs. to bring in those overlooked layers and ensure a more deeply personal, lived-in perspective?

No, I actually feel that The Great Indian Kitchen is a perfect film, and it's a very tough remake to take. The only way I could remake it was to give more heart to the original character. In the original, the female character is very strong. But in reality, I know that girls are very timid when they marry. They are very keen and eager to please. So those aspects were not as much there in the original—which I felt in ours—because even I, as a girl, initially would want to please; I would want to make things work. I would want to see recipes and make sure that we want to fit in. So that slightly was my idea, and that is, I changed the personality of the girl a little bit like that. She was also eager to marry. She was, in fact, very smitten by the boy. She bought herself a nightie, and she was waiting for her first night—like small, small things. When she keeps the toothbrush next to his—so things like that—because those are the things she is doing for the first time in her life. So I thought, for me, that this film was more microscopic—like how you do microsurgery in detail. But I cannot deny that I had the original to build upon. I was very lucky that I had the amazing original film to build upon.

The Great Indian Kitchen was an OTT release, yet it made a massive impact and sparked widespread conversations almost instantly. Given its strong subject matter, what made you choose a direct-to-OTT release for Mrs. instead of opting for a theatrical run? Did you ever consider that a big-screen experience might have amplified its reach and impact?

The reality of the big screen is very different in India right now—only some assume that they will work on the big screen—like those blockbusters, masala. So any producer would not be sure if it will be safe—it's best for them to release a film like this on the big screen. I saw, in hindsight, that while we were making and releasing it—we didn't know whether people would be open to a story like this or whether they would actually say, "OTT pe aaya toh dekh lenge." It could have gone like that. So I think the thing that really worked for this film—and because of which it has become so popular—is that it got released on ZEE5, which has a very massive audience base and also a very massive female audience base. I am getting messages from people who saw the film two or three times—and that was possible only because they had easy access to it. So, I think that worked in favour of the film.

Many people have commented on viral reels of the movie, saying that this is the reality they've seen or experienced in their homes, and they refuse to watch it because they think it will traumatise them. How do you respond to that?

It's true that so many people said that, "I saw the film; I got so triggered." Even my neighbours tell me that they saw the film but couldn't sleep the whole night because they were triggered. It was so close to home—like the things that the girl said—someone said to the girl—even one sentence. My mother was so triggered after seeing the film because she has suffered so much all her life—suddenly, she was standing up to my father. I think it is nice, because when they suffered, they suffered alone, and they had no audience for their suffering. They realised their injustice when they saw the film and saw what was happening to that character. So it is also a testament to how well Sanya performed in the film—so well that people could really be in her shoes and see for her.

Sanya Malhotra’s performance has been widely appreciated. What was your biggest takeaway from working with her?

Sanya is superbly talented. But what really stands out about her is that she is a girl with deep empathy. She studies and prepares for her role like I have not seen anyone do it. She had a diary entry for every scene; she met so many women, and she even took therapy notes of other women who have gone through it. I was interviewing some women, and she was also there—when we were talking, I could see how much she was crying, along with those women, understanding their pain—and that empathy is very important for the character to play this role as well.

What was the toughest scene to shoot for you and Sanya—one that affected you both emotionally or mentally?

The real trigger was the intimate scenes that we did in the night. Unfortunately, it was also a night shoot, and we were doing it back-to-back. It started weighing on us—just realising the kind of horror, not just that you're doing all this work throughout the day, but also the complete violation a girl feels when she has to go through this.

One of the standout castings for me was Kanwaljit Singh as the patriarch of the family, who has played the loving father to a daughter in many of his films where he empowers them. Was it a deliberate move to cast him in a character that is the antithesis of what he has played over the years?

I was very scared—and a lot of credit for this and Kanwaljit's casting goes to my casting director, Mukesh Chhabra. He's such a sweet and nice person; also, he is a very well-read and very evolved person. So he would himself say, "Yeh logon ke DNA mein rehta hai—unko pata hi nahi ke yeh galat kar rahe hai." For me to think that—to have him in this role—I was feeling a little unsure. But Mukesh said to go ahead with him. I think my brief to him was that only, "Sir, you are the victim," because he's like a child who never grew up—like, who's used to getting food from the mother, and then wife, and now he's expecting the same from daughter-in-law. So there's also an infantile thing to his demand—so that was important.

The original film’s climax was a cathartic moment of rebellion. How did you approach that in Mrs.? How did you make those intentional shifts in tone or execution to suit the Hindi audience?

We couldn't even do a political thing because, in today's time, we cannot make political statements very easily. So this becomes tougher to release and all, and then the whole, larger value is lost. So for me, I tried to make everything about her aspirations and her desire to be a full human. In the original version, she was asked to remove some political statements from her Facebook. Here, he actually asked her to delete her own old videos—which she feels like is erasing her past—because that was the only thing she was holding on to. She didn't have a clear future, and she didn't have a present, and her husband asked her to delete it. I felt that she should feel very threatened. I would feel very threatened if someone came and said, "Hey, you know what? You can't make movies anymore. I want you to delete the two films you have made." I'd be very heartbroken. So that was how I was seeing it. Of course, the end about the men's party was—here's the clearly whole patriarchy, like all the men. I think my writer, Anu Singh Chaudhary, came up with it.

The kitchen sequences in Mrs. are repetitive but layered with evolving tension. Moreover, one of the most unsettling aspects of the film is how patriarchy manifests not through grand gestures—but in the smallest, most mundane details. Was there a specific moment in the film when you knew the audience would have an emotional or visceral reaction?

The first day after mother-in-law leaves—and the effort she takes—I thought from there onwards people would start reacting a little bit to her thing. But I think for me, the shikanji scene—I knew that people would have a visceral reaction when she gives them and decides to pour shikanji on them, which she goes and serves. I saw in every screening of the film, people clap at that—finally, she's doing it. There was this thing that I had added, where she shares a cup of tea with her husband. Husband basically shares it with her on the first day, and then later on, when she takes the teacup out, he doesn't share with her—he's like, too busy. I don't know if people would catch it because it was a small heartbreak. But a lot of people caught it—so I thought it was nice.

Unlike traditional "woman empowerment" narratives, Mrs. doesn’t romanticize change—it’s messy, painful, and deeply personal. Was it challenging to maintain that rawness without falling into commercial storytelling tropes?

I feel the larger message also should not put the onus on the woman to change them. She just had to save herself—that's all. Men have to save them, save themselves, and correct themselves. You don't want to give her the responsibility of changing people—that was not the idea.

A lot of people feel that the remake has been polished. But the thing is that the effort we took to not be too polished was insane. We wanted to be aesthetically nice—but we also wanted to be very realistic. So there was nothing unreal. Those styles were, of course, beautiful and nice—but they were also realistic; I could see that in the North Indian house. And my idea was that this is a house of a doctor, and it's also a house of a woman, maybe with great taste—that's why her things are beautiful. From the tablecloth to the teacup—the things that she has chosen are beautiful without making them look like Bollywood. So we started describing stories—maybe this teacup she must have bought when she had gone there. So we start feeling a certain weight of history and everything that was there in the film. We never wanted to be like a classic Bollywood film where everything seems slightly unreal or escapist—because then the film would have fallen flat. Of course, we didn't want it to be very raw—because the accessibility becomes less if it's too raw, and the accessibility is slightly more because also it's slightly more cinematic. I was used to constantly using the term elevated reality for my various team heads. Lighting has to be—it’s morning, but a slightly extra gush of morning light, especially when she's newly married—because of such a happy morning. So that helped us dictate a lot of choices in terms of her clothes and her look also.

What also took me by surprise was that the male lead is a gynecologist—yet he doesn't respect women at all.

My idea was that this is independent of education and your economic status. This is such a prevalent problem—and it's very important to show it. Lots of people say that poor people treat their wives that way. It was like, "No, we all treat our wives like that." So my idea was that even if there's someone to do Jhaadu-Pocha—the cooking responsibility is huge. It's a lot—that was also the idea; I took that away from the original. In the original, Nimisha Sajayan also does mopping, cleaning, and all that. Here, she does the dusting and cooking.

Many key scenes from Mrs. have been widely shared on social media. As a filmmaker, does it bother you that audiences are consuming the film in fragments—rather than as a complete cinematic experience? Do you think this affects the way viewers engage with the story and its impact?

They see film in bits and pieces—and when they arrive at the film, they can't enjoy it the way we intended them to enjoy. But this is the reality of today's time. But there are a lot of accounts that have the whole film out; in fact, I spoke to the ZEE5 anti-piracy team also about it. You want people to actually see the full film from start to finish—experience Richa's journey and arrive at something. But, you know, we live in a time where people consume and react to media in a very different way as well. So, I'm slightly open to it—but I do prefer a slightly old-fashioned way.

ALSO READ: Mrs: The Great Indian Kitchen Adaptation Is Just As Effective