Revisiting Rima Kallingal’s 22 Female Kottayam: An uncompromising film

In 22 Female Kottayam, Rima Kallingal played the role of Tessa, a Malayali nurse working in Bangalore who falls in love with a young entrepreneur named Cyril, played by Fahadh Faasil. As the movie progresses, viewers realise Tessa is in a vicious trap set by Cyril. Tessa gets raped by Cyril’s client Hegde, played by Prathap Pothen, and she gets shattered mentally and physically. However, Tessa still believes in Cyril without knowing he’s the perpetrator behind her assault. Tessa gets raped again by the same person and she starts to realise that Cyril is behind her plight. And before Tessa confronts Cyril, he frames her in a fake drug case and she lands up in jail. The movie then shows how Tessa regains her strength in the jail, even as she listens to stories of other female inmates.

22 Female Kottayam doesn’t take away the agency of the heroine and shows how she single handedly takes revenge on her rapist and Cyril. Rima plays the role of a wounded woman who is yearning for revenge with absolute conviction.

22 Female Kottayam is special in many ways. The director was bold enough to come up with a movie with a female character who manages to come back to life even after she is dragged down by some wicked men. Moreover, Tessa was projected as a woman who didn’t surrender to the sadistic behaviour of Cyril. She is also not shown going into a depressive mental state. Instead, Tessa is depicted as a fighter who can ignite the fire in every woman. She went through hell and used it as her strength to take revenge on the men who tried to destroy her life. Other than Tessa, there are some strong female characters in the movie and the most striking of them all is the Tamil inmate named Subaida, played by Resmi Sateesh. Subaida gave Tessa the confidence to exact revenge.

Though the Rima Kallingal starrer was lauded by critics and the audience alike, Malayalam cinema didn’t gain much momentum from it as the industry still struggles to make movies with women in lead roles.