Tag Archives: Anand Tiwari

Film Reviews

Film Review: Maja Ma (2022)

STORY

Maja Ma is about a Gujarati boy Tejas who is in love with Esha and wants to get married. During the parents’ meetup, a rumor sparks in society about Tejas’ mother Pallavi when she is exposed in the video admitting to her daughter Tara that she is a lesbian.

REVIEW

Maja Ma has a lot of social issues to work on. A typical middle-class Gujarati family marrying into NRI. Then Tejas’ sister, who is an activist for LGBTQIA+ rights. And then the mystery behind Tejas’ mother who is highly insecure and unable to decide if she must tell the world what she is. Three different elements in the same plot challenge writing and grows a lot of responsibility on the director’s shoulders. Sadly, Maja Ma collapses itself by staying in the bubble and not provoking the resistance.

Within half an hour to the start, Tara finds out that mom is lesbian, just before Esha and her parents are reaching India from the US. There was no buildup before the revelation so the reaction was flat.

Director Anand Tiwari didn’t bother to take risks at all. When Tejas’ family receives Esha’s at the airport, the director didn’t show how both parents interact. The biggest directional miss of the film was when Pallavi is exposed in the festival, the aftermath is skipped and then Pallavi is depicted to be on her bed with her family taking care of her. How can you not shoot the moments after she got exposed in front of society and Esha’s parents?

I am further surprised that the continuity didn’t even bother to reflect on the reaction of Pallavi’s husband Manohar. He looked quite normal.

I don’t know why but Esha and her parents’ American accents sounded to me pretty fake. And then Esha’s father using a lie detector on Pallavi was too far a stretch. How can a family marry their boy in a house where the girl’s father uses this machine on the boy’s mother? How come Tejas didn’t protest or oppose? How come the family didn’t take a stand against it? I can understand the girl’s father testing the boy but his parents? That is low.

Another miss was leaving the culprit behind who made the video viral. How did the culprit escape? How was the elephant in the room not addressed? So, Maja Ma suffers from careless writing.

PERFORMANCES

The film had some good performances. Gajraj Rao continues his superb form and what impresses me about him is his body language hits the right tone. His style of communication is very natural. Srishti Shrivastava and Simone Singh in supporting roles are excellent though. The biggest plus was the heart of the film Madhuri Dixit. She proves again why is she such a phenomenal actress and one of the biggest legends of the cinema. Just look at her facial tone when Tara presses for a response. In fact, the mother/daughter arguments were intense.

CLOSING REMARKS

Maja Ma wasted a life out of the story and couldn’t do justice to the points the film wanted to speak about. A mother/wife in a typical household turning out to be a lesbian is something we do not think of in the film. The film deserved a better script and needed to execute the project like that of ‘2 States‘.

RATINGS: 3/10

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Film Reviews

Movie Review: Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (2015)

detective_byomkesh_bakshy_2015_first_look_poster

Factory Siren | Bengal Freedom Movement | Japanese Gang War | Chinatown | Chemist | Paan Box | Opium | Detective | Newspaper | Ganges River

What if I tell you there is a fictional detective story which connects all the keywords mentioned above? What if I tell you that Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is one of the most well-equipped detective movie made in Bollywood? In 21st century, the other detective movie coming close to this was Sujoy Ghosh‘s Kahaani (please don’t say Tarkieb). But the reason why I love Dibakar Banerjee‘s movies is the depth and intensity of the script involving all the characters in tremendous harmony. And he has done it again.

Byomkesh Bakshi basically is a popular fictional detective figure in Bengali literature. The character was created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay and he wrote 32 stories between 1932 and 1970.

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Dibakar introduced a highly impressive story sketching a war-torn Calcutta of the pre-independence in which Byomkesh takes the case of a lost man whose fate lies under an evil genius. Byomkesh is lost in the open secrets and discoveries but his skills and wits are his answer to every threat.

Being used to of watching many international detective programs, I found the outcome of movie very freshly baked in its genre. The reason is a diverse environment and acceptance of Bengali rich literature. A powerful story transformed and wonderfully presented by a better director.

Movie offers a quality of story-telling in a ridiculously fluctuated pace. When Byomkesh begins spying, movie goes slow. When Byomkesh investigates, movie goes fast. Between the tones, he pauses the viewers at some dramatic scenes to capture more attention.

With the seriousness of the script, there is unbelievably dark humor at some portions. Soundtracks are attractive and again fresh to your ears, you surely won’t expect some hard metal in 40s Calcutta. Soundtracks are equally balanced and compiled of Bengali, Hindi and English numbers.

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Performance is flying carpet where outstanding performances deserve huge compliment. Anand Tiwari as Byomkesh’s sidekick, Swastika Mukherjee as dancer and spy, Meiyang Chang as opium dealer are performers that cannot be ignored. Sushant Singh Rajput as detective Byomkesh was a decent pick but very challenging at the initial stage of his career. He is talented and I appreciate to take this challenge. Actors like Akshay Kumar, Ayushmann Khurana or Abhay Deol could have played this role very well.

The best among the performers was theater legend Neeraj Kabi as Dr.Guha who runs a male hostel. Reports are that Dibakar’s first pick was Aamir Khan for such a vital role but he rejected for Dhoom 3???

Overall this surely is one of the five best Hindi movies of the year for me.

Rating: 8.8/10

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