Maja Ma Review: A family entertainer with important message could have been made with a little more sensitivity
Maja Ma Movie Rating: 2 Stars
Just watched Maja Ma movie on Amazon Prime Video. Let’s focus on the complete details, story, positive/negatives and at last my personal view on this movie.
Cast: Madhuri Dixit Nene, Gajraj Rao, Ritwik Bhowmik, Srishti Shrivastava, Rajit Kapoor, Sheeba Chaddha, Simone Singh, Barkha Singh, Ninad Kamat and Kevin Dave
Director: Anand Tiwari
Release Date: 6th October 2022 on Amazon Prime Video
Story: Movie revolves around Pallavi Patel (Madhuri Dixit) who is a graceful dancer, a dutiful wife and an extremely dedicated mother. She lives in Ahmedabad with her husband Manohar (Gajraj Rao) and daughter Tara (Srishti Shrivastava). Tara is living away from her husband to pursue a PhD in gender studies and she goes about waving the LGBTQIA+ flag with her heterosexual privilege as a transgender puts it.
Her son Tejas (Ritwik Bhowmik), while pursuing a career in the US falls in love with an NRI Punjabi girl Esha (Barkha Singh). Her rich Bob Hansraj (Rajit Kapur) and Pam (Sheeba Chadha). Bob and Pam are not happy with this relationship as they feel that Tejas is not at par with them in terms of class.
Bob asks him to undergo a lie detector test. To Bob’s surprise, he passes with flying colors. However, he puts yet another condition and wants to meet Tejas’s parents to make sure he comes from a respectable family. Navratri celebrations are going on and Pallavi is the lead dancer in their residential society. Manohar is the society chairman and Viral (Kavin Dave) wants to usurp his position. He’s looking for that one opportunity that will help him in his endeavor.
As luck would have it, he comes across a shocking video of Pallavi. He gets it played during the Navratri celebrations in the presence of everyone including Bob, Pam and Esha. Pallavi’s life turns upside down due to this video. What happens next forms the rest of the film.
Positives
1. Excellent Performances
2. Climax
3. Story
Negatives
1. Music
2. Screenplay
3. Direction
4. Dialogues
Durgesh Tiwary’s View: When I watched the trailer of this film planned to watch this movie in free time because of Madhuri Dixit and trailers look entertaining.
Pallavi Patel is the quintessential, middle aged, devoted housewife who is equally famous for her dance as she is for her cooking. But what happens when a rumor about her, threatens to disrupt her middle-class family’s ethos, on the eve of her son Tejas’ engagement with a rich, NRI girl?
Maja Ma story is novel and intriguing, but screenplay doesn’t entirely do justice to the excellent plot in hand. A few scenes are well executed and thought of. The sensitive plot is written with such finesse that even if such a topic does not interest the viewer, he is not likely to feel repulsed by it. There are several other characters in the drama, besides the members of the two families. The good part is that the actions of each character are right from his/her viewpoint, because of which the viewers do not feel disconnected. The lie detection test of Pallavi is another highlight sequence. But in several places, the writing is not tight.
The biggest problem of this film is that it is marketed as a clean family entertainer and this film isn’t exactly that. The makers should have given a hint about these aspects in the trailers so that viewers know what they are getting into. Agreed that the film speaks about normalizing such topics. However, informing beforehand wouldn’t have harmed. The film has a large number of elements that are applaudable, but there’s still something that feels amiss at the end. Probably, it’s the conveniences used, and a happy-in-the-hood kind of an ending for Pallavi and her lover Kanchan. A more realistic conclusion would have elevated the material way more. Also, the pace of the film feels incredibly slow on several occasions which should have been looked into more carefully.
Overall, movie rests on a novel premise and able performances and also makes an important comment. Madhuri Dixit is the only thing working in favor of this movie. Rest everything is over-the-top without too much of logical explanations. The film, which is saying such an important thing, could have been made with a little more sensitivity. My view on this movie Time Pass only if you are Madhuri Dixit fan.
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