Kajol, regarded as one of the best actresses of the post-Azmi generation, delivers a borderline anti-empathetic performance in a horror film that should have never been made. It just doesn’t justify its presence in any way.
It is a mother-daughter empathetic story, but the actress seems to be disconnected from her screen daughter. I remember Manisha Koirala telling me that she didn’t know the name of the boy who was her immediate co-star, even after shooting the entire film.
Did Kajol even know the name of the young girl (Kherin Sharma) playing her daughter? Does this mother really care what happens to her daughter? When the architects of this poorly constructed mother-daughter mound of hysteria don’t care, why should anyone else?
Maa, directed by Vishal Furia (his Chhichore wasn’t exactly The Exorcist) is so not worthy of Kajol that you wonder why she agreed to be part of such a tacky single-note horror drama in the first place. She has done other films as an over-protective mother, like Pradeep Sarkar’s Helicopter Ela and Revathi’s Salaam Venky. Both were no great shakes, but nonetheless, bearable when compared with this screechy, scratchy version of Sridevi’s Mom and Bipasha Basu’s Aatma, and several other spook stints where the mother figure “protects” her child from an evil presence.
Right. But who will protect the audience from this film?
Throughout the over-long running time, Kajol as Ambika goes through her motherly motions mechanically, is never fully there. Though never missing in identifying the correct template (it’s after all, Kajol), the performance lacks genuine feeling.
The rest of the cast is purely, true to demand, and supportive. More diverting than anything else in the dreary drama of devilish deeds is Ronit Roy’s exaggerated Bengali accent. This is the first time I’ve seen Ronit overact, and it is quite a sobering experience. Another Bengali actor Indraneil Sengupta is the quintessential Supportive Spouse in a female-oriented subject, like Vinod Mehra and Vikrant Massey in those Shabana Azmi and Taapsee Pannu starrers.
Maa seems like a cry in the dark. It desperately wants to reach out. But has no clue how to do so beyond pandering to predictability. All the tropes and terror tactics are religiously, pun intended, followed. But there is no sense of the unexpected here. It all seems overplanned, over-rehearsed and altogether underwhelming.
The climax gets somewhat less lethargic. But only in comparison with what we have seen in the rest of the film. By the time Madhavan shows up in a poorly conceived digital appearance, Maa is too far gone to be redeemed even by the Gods. Jai Maa Kali.
