STORY
An Indian couple from Kolkata in Norway loses the custody of their two children to the country’s Child Welfare Service when the latter fail them for ‘incompetent parenting’. ‘Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway‘ is a legal drama that is based on a real life story of Sagarika Bhattacharya who fought against the state to get her children back.
REVIEW
Without a doubt, the event is real and not fiction but my concern is the micro-detailing of the real event that doesn’t buy me tokens of belief in the screenplay. As for example, the draconian portrayal of the child welfare institute. There was no neutrality, Norway looked like some devilish state offering no tolerance to the foreigners. Mrs. Chatterjee who wakes up after an unconscious collapse, grabs her husband’s mobile, runs away from the institute with no camera and security detecting her escape. The most outrageous of all wrongs was the ladies of the welfare service running away with their children as if they were kidnapping.
I have no knowledge if the real Mrs. Chatterjee somehow took her kids from a foster house and ran away from Norway to Sweden. I also have zero knowledge about the Indian side of the film if the relatives signed any treaty with Norway disallowing the mother to get her children from the relatives. As an observer, all these scenes looked sensationalized. If all that is actually true, my severe sympathy with Ms Sagarika Bhattacharya. Then I say that the directional execution of the entire story was ordinary.
The film began with a boring BANG! that Mrs. Chatterjee runs towards the welfare car to get her children from them. And then the flashback focuses how it all started. You could have simply started the film with the welfare ladies making the final visit at the Chatterjees and spending at least five minutes of their formal conversation making the audience uncomfortable and clueless that something is really looking off in this meeting. And then BOOM! the ladies breaking the dreadful news to the couple of taking their children. The parents losing their Goddamn minds and protesting the decision. Getting panicked and protecting their children from them. Making panic calls here and there. This is how the film should have started.
I don’t know why is this film in Hindi. The Bengali couple speaking in Hindi with each other didn’t look right at all. The film must have been in Bengali and Norwegian languages with Hindi limited only to the third person. Speaking of the language, the High Court scenes of India are dramatized in Kolkata. I am not sure if Hindi is used in the high court of the West Bengal state or not.
I happen to notice an extremely silly mistake in the film. The first scene of the Kolkata High Court shows the arrival of the judge in the court. In the first line where Mrs. Chatterjee is benched, two legal representatives are appearing. In a few seconds, we observe there is only one and the prosecution lawyer is actually missing. She is shown to have arrived late to the court due to heavy traffic. And the prosecution lawyer, I was stunned and really thought that Mamta Kulkarni has returned to the silver screen after decades. But I was mistaken, she is Balaji Gauri.
RANI MUKHERJEE
I think Rani Mukherjee was a very good choice for Mrs. Chatterjee. For a mother who was traumatized by the authorities for taking her children, a restless translation of injustice, Rani brilliantly gave us a tragic motherhood appeal. You may feel annoyance about her mental outburst making the case of the Welfare Service stronger but this is the type of a frustrated mother Rani was roped in to.
CLOSING REMARKS
Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway deserved a better screenwriter and a director. The story had every potential to turn into an exceptional courtroom drama. Perhaps, a limited series would have done justice, only if the writing was genuine.
RATING 4/10
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Sami Naik | Film Critic 