Ladies' knights

If men onscreen are warmer, chattier, more emotional and caring, it's because women filmmakers behind the scenes are braver. Slowly, they're making us realise that portraying aman as vulnerable might be the most daring plot twist after all

- Urvee Modwel

We know what happens sometimes when men write about women. Breasts, hips (even ponytails) sway as heroines go the mall or to war. Women characters push men's journeys forward, disappear from the story after the item number. They rarely showcase the range of the female experience.

But when the roles are reversed, and women filmmakers craft male characters, something unusual happens - usually. It gives men, even muscled heroes, the kind of depth that audiences rarely see. Men are allowed to be vulnerable, exhausted, communicative, human. Audiences get to see what green flags look like in a romantic partner. Check out how many "Bro is a green forest"-type comments pop up on clips of Farhan Akhtar from Dil Dhadakne Do (2015), and Ranveer Singh in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani (2023). Men seem to love it too. Filmmaker Tanuja Chandra recalls something the late actor Irrfan Khan told her when they were shooting Qarib Qarib Singlle (2017). Khan plays Yogi in a rom-com about two people with contrasting personalities connecting on a dating app. Yogi is attractive, but more whimsical than macho. "He's someone who considers a woman his equal, if not better, and would never cross a boundary with her,” Chandra says. "Irrfan said that we had written a male character whom women longed for in real life. Someone who had flaws and annoying qualities that made him real, but who was also tender and respectful and a feminist," she says. "I told him, 'Why not? If one can't do this in movies, where else might one do this?""

Today's women filmmakers are determined to give their characters, male and female, a break from the tired tropes so audiences can breathe easy too. See how they do it.

Boy meets world