‘Maa' movie review: Kajol cuts to the chase in this ho-hum horror drama

The Hindu

4 hours ago

After every few years, we have a female star taking on the role of a doting mother who morphs into a saviour of her child and family. It is a time-tested Bollywood formula for the heroine who is losing her space under the spotlight to play her age and yet remain central to the story. The template remains the same, but the public sentiment associated with the mother figure is such that the melodrama keeps getting recycled. From Jaya Prada in Maa to Sridevi in Mom and Raveena Tandon in Maatr, the mother magic has worked for several actors.
This week, it is Kajol's turn to take the mantle and remind the public that, given the opportunity, she can drive a narrative. While her male contemporaries are still romancing young girls, she has already played a couple of compelling mummy variants in Helicopter Eela and Salaam Venky.
Here, the actor has joined hands with Vishal Furia, who tweaked the 'mother in distress' template with Chhorii by adding a layer of supernatural mystery, female agency, and social commentary to make the mumbo-jumbo sound contemporary and progressive.
With Kajol by his side, he has the budget to scale up the thought and the spooky atmospherics. The setting is Bengal, which allows him to incorporate the Maa mythology, where the divine organically meets the familial, but the result is surprisingly unengaging.
It unspools like a chapter that you have already crammed, an activity that you have already undertaken, a road that you have already traveled. Yes, there are a couple of eerie blind spots, but for the most part, you know where we are headed and how we will get there. Despite being shot on location, Maa gives the sense that we are in a make-believe world. It addresses pertinent concerns, such as how to discuss the onset of menstruation with a teenager. It is woven into the story; however, the heavy-handed approach reduces it to a drab plot device.
Shuvankar (Indraneil Sengupta) refuses to take his wife, Ambika (Kajol), and daughter, Shweta (Kherin Sharma), to his native place in Bengal because of a mysterious curse that endangers the lives of young girls in his family. The death of his father forces him to return. It spirals into a series of mysterious events, compelling Ambika to take her daughter to Chandra Nagar and confront the might of a demon with deep roots in the story and religious symbolism of the goddess Durga, as well as her fight against evil forces. Writer Saiwyn Quadras attempts to connect the demonic past with the patriarchal present, but it doesn't work out in the Bengali backdrop. The folklore is flat. Raktabeej has become the most popular mythical monster for Hindi film writers across various genres. The unique characteristic of the demon, who could replicate himself from every drop of blood that fell from his body, has been put to the test so many times that even agnostics can read its blood report.
Maa (Hindi)
Director: Vishal Furia
Cast: Kajol, Ronit Roy, Indraneil Sengupta, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Kherin Sharma, Vibha Rani, Gopal Singh
Run-time: Duration: 145 minutes
Storyline: A demon's curse forces a mother to morph into a goddess to save her daughter
The presence of Ronit Roy as the village headman and the absence of red herrings ensure that the snake in the grass is visible from a distance. Unlike Chhorii, there are hardly any moral dilemmas or difficult decisions to make, which kept us engaged.
We are left to stare at the CGI monsters and the endless, shape-shifting limbs of a Banyan tree. The sequence where Ambika and Shweta attempt to escape in a car and are chased by a bevy of monster girls makes one sit up and drop the popcorn.
Otherwise, there are long passages where the over(or under)acting of supporting actors and the deliberate rolling of the tongue to manufacture the Bengali accent become increasingly irritating. After a point, the intrinsic logic fails to add up. In the age of creating cinematic universes, the makers seem keen on building connections with Shaitaan that could bring Ajay Devgn and Kajol together. It is a delicious idea, but its seed, or should we say Raktabeej, is not potent enough.
Kherin is not the right choice to play Kajol's daughter. She doesn't look the part, and the emotional bond hardly seeps through the screen. Kajol excels in roles that take a no-nonsense approach to life. Here, Ronit, Gopal Singh, and Vibha Rani try to create a melodramatic atmosphere around her that traditionally suits the genre, but Kajol, saddled with emotionally emaciated writing, sticks to her straightforward approach. One thought the subject and writing might bring out Naina of Dushman in Kajol, but she remains Ambika, the mother goddess, making it a one-sided, one-dimensional contest.
A Navratra release might have injected some outside energy, but at a time when even the guardians of the universe are asleep, it is hard to keep the mortals invested.
Maa is currently running in theatres