Sanya Malhotra’s Mrs. was met with unanimous praise when it released on ZEE5 earlier this year. However, a section of men on social media criticized the film for showing a “one-sided feminist narrative” and even called it “toxic”. The actor opened up about this recently and explained how the film showed the reality of many women in Indian households.

During a session titled ‘SheShakti 2025’ with CNN-News18, Sanya said, “The problem isn’t that she didn’t want to cook. She was cooking, even serving it nicely, but getting zero appreciation from the family. The problem started when she wanted to do something else and showed the family that she is capable of managing the household and also wants to go out and pursue something she loves. But she wasn’t allowed to do that — she wasn’t given the freedom.”

She added, “The problem started when she wanted to do something else and showed the family that she is capable of managing the household and also wants to go out and pursue something she loves. But she wasn’t allowed to do that — she wasn’t given the freedom. The story has reached the people it needed to reach.”

After the film’s release earlier this year, a men’s rights group, Save Indian Family Foundation took to X to share its criticism about what the film stands for. It mentioned how men work for 8-9 hours in different occupations but “a happy woman cooking food, doing dishes and pressing clothes of her father-in-law is oppression for her". Several other users called out the sexism and conservative thinking behind these series of tweets.

Mrs. is the Hindi adaptation of the Malayalam film, The Great Indian Kitchen and features Sanya playing a housewife. Directed by Arati Kadav, Mrs also stars Nishant Dahiya and Kanwaljit Singh in pivotal roles.