This is as flawless as cinema gets: numbing in its fluid interpretation of life’s often-cruel vicissitudes, resplendent in its compassion, empathy, and profound understanding of human relationships, broken and battered as they often are.
Director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s new work is a shining, sparkling gem, with characters and performances which will stay with you for a very long time, even the smallest ones.
Standing tall at the centre of this stately meditation on love and its whimsical peregrination is a startling actress, Jaya Ahsan, whose face conveys the map of the human heart. Have you seen her work? If not, then you are sadly missing the advent of a phenomenon. Jaya, like her namesake (Bachchan, not Prada), communicates her character’s inner world effortlessly.
As Brinda, a woman who is baffled and often stumped by the responsibilities thrust on her as a wife, a mother, and a professional, Jaya Ahsan nails it. She is the soul of Aniruddha’s film, navigating, as she does, the wistful, wonderful screenplay (Sakyajit Bhattacharya, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury) through a sea of splendid heartbreaks and reclamations.
Brinda, like all memorable heroes, is a fractured soul. Her relationship with her adopted daughter Jhimli (the 5-year-old actress Ahana is a scene-stealer, and the 11-year-old Jhimli, played by Nandika Das, isn’t far behind) is not a soppy, predictable, traditional rendering of the mother-daughter relationship.
Nothing in Dear Maa (except maybe the humdrum title) is straitjacketed. Aniruddha, in his best work to date, wisely opts for a free-flowing narrative. The editing by Arghakamal Mitra creates a sense of continuity within the chaos of life.
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The actors are so memorable I would hate to mention one and ignore the other. Chandan Roy Sanyal, as Brinda’s husband and Jhimli’s doting father, is gone too soon. We never stop missing him. After Jaya Ahsan, the relationship and the character that leave the strongest impact are the one between Brinda and her househelp Nirmala Di, played by that incredible actress Anubha Fatehpuria (seen recently in that other memorable release Dhadak 2).
We often say we treat our househelp as family. In this one, nothing needs to be said. The scenes where Nirmala ticks off the cop Nandi (Saswata Chatterjee, excellent as a cop who doesn’t seem to be paying attention to the crisis on hand) after Jhimli disappears, or the way Nirmala ticks off Jhimli for her truant behaviour (“I may be provoked into slapping you”) shows Nirmala is what she is.
Or Brinda’s relationship with her mentor Somesh (Dhritiman Chatterjee, as dependable as ever). So much is left unsaid between them. And when Brinda insists on ordering a ham sandwich (the only thing hammy in the film) for Somesh even though he is a vegetarian (a symptom of her self-absorption), until the end when she orders a vegetarian sandwich for both, so much is said about her and their relationship without saying anything.
And books: when Jhimli wants to visit a bookstore with her mother Brinda, Brinda suggests they could just order the books online.
Such moments are so revealing without seeming to be so.
No need to define the relationships in Dear Maa. As Gulzar Saab once said, “Humnein dekhi hai unn aankhon ki mehekti khushboo, haath se chhooke isse rishton ka ilzaam na do.” Dear Maa reifies that sentiment without over-punctuating a single emotion.
A word for Bickram Ghosh’s background score. It accompanies the emotions without getting in the way. Dear Maa is not to be missed by anyone who loves cinema.
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