Helen of Troy and Athena, in The Odyssey (2026). There are no great women in Christopher Nolan’s films. With Homer’s epic, there was a chance to change that. Instead, the tale turns out to be just Odysseus (Matt Damon) on an eventful journey home after the Trojan War. Helen (Lupita Nyong’o), over whom the war was fought, only gets to rage about what men have done in her name, and kill her husband. Goddess Athena (Zendaya) fares worse. She’s a protector, but appears intermittently, to do sweet nothing.
Joi, in Blade Runner 2049 (2017). Denis Villeneuve casts Ana de Armas as a mass-produced companion for K, a replicant or a bioengineered humanoid (Ryan Gosling). This is a pretty pairing, but Joi shows hints of a more complex interiority than K. Still, she is reduced to cooking, cleaning, and essentially morphing into whoever K wants her to be. K gets all the existential crises and quests. Joi gets to be a cog in K’s wheel. What a waste.
Sharon Tate, in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). How do you cast a queen like Margot Robbie, get her to play the only central character based on a real person, and still sideline her? You get Quentin Tarantino to direct. His movie focuses on fictional men, actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), in 1960s Hollywood. He rewrites Tate’s fate by letting Rick and Cliff save her from a serial killer. Even with the creative license, she doesn’t get to save herself.
Elizabeth de Burgh, in Outlaw King (2018). Florence Pugh is dynamite enough to shine even in a small part. She plays Elizabeth, Scottish king Robert the Bruce’s second wife, in this 14th-century period drama. There’s scope for fiery cinema when she is captured by the English, and would rather be locked in a cage than renounce her husband. And Pugh brings wit, humour and resolve to her role. But the film never gives her enough room to shine or tell a real story.
Rani Padmavati, in Padmaavat(2018). As the title suggests, the movie is literally about a Rajput queen: A skilled hunter, shrewd politician and strategist. We know Deepika Padukone can handle complex roles. And yet, much of the movie is about her husband Ratan Singh, and Sultan Alauddin Khilji (who’s obsessed with her, sight unseen). She gets little screen time and even less agency. She’s stuck being an ideal instead of a person. Do we even know what made her heart sing?
Aafia Yusufzai Bhinder, in Zero (2018). OK, this is an SRK film. He’s short and this defines him and his ambitions. But Aafia (Anushka Sharma) is a wheelchair-using scientist working on a Mars mission. Sharma worked with an occupational therapist and audiologist to create Aafia’s movements and speech. And yet, Aafia is pushed to the margins the minute the hero finds a new love interest, and she stops serving his purpose. A missed opportunity the size of Jupiter.
Geetanjali, in Animal (2023). Sandeep Reddy Vanga cast Rashmika Mandanna to play the woman who holds a batshit, dysfunctional family together. Even then, she’s basically the background, there to balance Ranvijay (Ranbir Kapoor), an emotionally stunted man with daddy issues. Take him away from the screen, and Geetanjali ceases to matter. Her emotions are only a response to her husband’s violence and toxicity. She’s never more than an afterthought.
Nomi, in No Time to Die (2021). Bond girls have, over the years, had meatier roles in the movies. But Nomi (Lashana Lynch), the agent who has taken the 007 designation after Bond’s retirement, gets an all-too-brief chance at wowing MI6. Bond is dragged back into the field to save his old lover and their daughter. But Nomi, his professional equal, is there just to anchor the weight of Bond’s fame. She’s made to ultimately hand back the 007 badge; just a piece in Bond’s ceremonial swansong.
Lenka, in Spaceman (2024). Czech astronaut Jakub Procházka (Adam Sandler) is on a solo mission towards Jupiter. But an alien and the collapse of his marriage (he abandoned Lenka when she was pregnant) force him to confront some hard truths. Carey Mulligan plays Lenka, who is stuck as a secondary character in Jakub’s emotional orbit. Jaroslav Kalfař’s OG novel covers a much larger story about Czech history and Jakub escaping the family legacy. In the movie, the woman’s absence is merely there to teach Jakub a moral lesson.
Shruti Sengupta, in Jagga Jasoos (2017). Imagine being the narrator and still playing second fiddle to a character whose credentials also can’t match up to your competence. Ranbir Kapoor plays Jagga, while Katrina Kaif plays the investigative journalist trying to crack an international arms-smuggling racket. She brings her own network, knowledge and wit, which ultimately collide with Jagga’s search for his lost foster father. Eventually, her quest gets absorbed into Jagga’s mission, serving only as a sidebar to his adventures. Boo!
From HT Brunch, October 17, 2026
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