‘Maja Ma’ directed by Anand Tiwari and written by Sumit Batheja is a film revolving around womanhood in traditional family life. It’s an all-out Gujarati affair with equal parts humour & drama that also aims at delivering a social message with regards to the image we have of women and especially our mothers. It casts Madhuri Dixit, Gajraj Rao, Barkha Singh, Ritwik Bhowmik, Sheeba Chaddha, Rajit Kapur and Shrishti Shrivastava.
The trailer begins with Tejas (Ritwik Bhoumik), a regular guy, introducing himself as a middle class man with a 9-to-5 job who really looks upto his mother, played here by Madhuri Dixit. It marks Madhuri Dixit’s role as a central character, after having her digital debut with Netflix’s The Fame Game. Gajraj Rao plays the traditional, orthodox husband to Madhuri Dixit’s character. He maintains his comic take and tone througout the trailer. He is a Gujarati man who is naïve when it comes to the so-called taboos of the Indian society and describes his family as “a clean virgin family”. Rao questions if even women have dirty thoughts. He is unaware of the intimate needs of a marriage and those of a woman. The conversation and tuning between him and his friend is hilarious.
Tejas falls for a girl (Barkha Singh) who hails from America. And then begin the agreements & disagreements, the highs & the lows that come when two culturally different families try and see a future together. Barkha and family carry a thick, prominent American accent and are in constant doubt if they can find any compatibility with Tejas’s traditional and sometimes, clumsy family. What drives the plot is the cultural, social and economic conflict between the two families. But Maja Ma is trying to be more and focusing about the woman in a mother rather than the marital setting between the two families.
Most of us as Indian adults find our mother the most righteous person in our lives. We empathise with everything that our mothers do but we often forget to acknowledge that human errors are a part to them as well. Mothers and families do have secrets too. In addition to that, we often overlook their needs which are only human. This happens when we try and whitewash the imperfections that are all-natural and should exist by nature.
The trailer looks promising, enticing and high on energy. The film looks the part of a family entertainer. It has enough color and light to hold attention. For Maja Ma, it is not just going to be about the progressive story, but also the entertainment it should leave us with because of its music, characters and the bend towards cultural comedy.
Maja Ma produced by Leo Media Collective and Amritpal Singh Bindra releases on Prime Video on October 6, 2022.
You can watch the trailer here-
