Salon secrets

Meenakshi Jayan apprenticed at a beauty parlour to prepare for her award-winning role

- BY NIRMAL JOVIAL

It was in a moment most unkind to any heroine—drenched in sweat and weary from a long walk through the sun-scorched streets of Angamaly—that Meenakshi Jayan first met her director, Sivaranjini J. “My phone's display was half-broken back then—and Siva imagined her title character, Victoria, as someone who would have a broken phone too!” says Meenakshi, who won the Golden Goblet Award for Best Actress in the Asia New Talent category at the Shanghai International Film Festival.

Set inside a beauty parlour, Victoria, Sivaranjini’s debut feature, delves deep into the female psyche. The film’s titular character, Victoria, is a beautician whose routine takes an unexpected turn when a rooster falls under her care during her commute, prompting her to bring it to the parlour. The rooster—subtly suggestive of a male presence—becomes a quirky, symbolic intrusion in this otherwise all-female space. Against this backdrop, women from varied backgrounds open up, share their stories, and find solace in one another.

Having begun her journey in Malayalam cinema as a dubbing artist in 2016, Meenakshi appeared in a few short films before starring in a lead role for the first time in