‘Maa’ opens well, grounding us in the lush, often-overlooked backdrop of Eastern India. There's an earthy, old-world charm to the way the village of Chandrapur is introduced, complete with its bari, whispered legends, and generational guilt.
Ambika (Kajol), her husband Shubhankar (Indraneil Sengupta), and their daughter seem like a happy family until a death in the family drags them back to Shubhankar’s ancestral village. What begins as a reluctant homecoming slowly turns into a walk straight into the heart of a long-standing curse.
There’s an early sense of purpose in the storytelling, and the setup is intriguing. You feel like you're in for a grim fairy tale—one soaked in fear, tradition, and suppressed secrets.
When horror forgets to haunt
Despite the sound premise and the eerie setting, the film stumbles where it matters most—scaring you. There is virtually an empty bari, disappearing children, and an air of dread that occasionally lingers, but it never quite lands.
The horror sequences are mostly loud rather than unsettling. At times, you almost see the setup coming—a shrivelled face appearing, a sound cue rising—and the tension dissipates. What saves these parts is the emotional thread running through it: a mother desperate to shield her child from a darkness she doesn't fully understand.
The film tries to do something different by blending horror with mythology, but the result feels more like a creative idea than a fully formed genre experience. You wait for chills, but they rarely arrive.
From rural drama to mythical showdown
As the film progresses, it slowly lets go of its grounded tone and starts veering into theatrical territory. The final act, in particular, feels like a completely different film. Without giving too much away, Kajol’s character is imbued with powers that allow her to take on a supernatural villain—who is, quite literally, an old tree.
The metaphor is clear, perhaps even ambitious, but its execution borders on absurd. The careful build-up, the murmur of folklore and mythology, and the emotional pull get overshadowed by a CGI-heavy climax that feels more like a superhero origin story than a horror finale.
Somewhere around the Kali puja sequence, you sense the film wanting to go bigger, louder—but that bigness costs it its grip.
Kajol stands tall
Kajol holds the film together. As Ambika, she brings sincerity and steel, navigating both maternal vulnerability and rage with admirable restraint—until the script demands she do otherwise. You believe her journey even when it starts feeling far-fetched. Ronit Roy plays the village sarpanch with a certain calm demeanour, and his grasp of the film’s cultural tonality—his Hindi tinged with Bengali—is spot-on.
Indraneil Sengupta has a short role as Shubhankar but makes it count. Unfortunately, other characters feel like missed opportunities. Dibyendu Bhattacharya as the caretaker of the house is reduced to a few functional scenes, while others barely leave a mark.
The film leans so heavily on Kajol that everything else begins to feel like set dressing.
Flashes of visual flair, but not enough grip
Visually, ‘Maa’ is impressive. The rural interiors, the looming banyan trees, the rituals—they add texture. And the VFX, especially the animated tree with its sprawling limbs, is ambitious and impactful. But great visuals can’t hide a flat screenplay.
There are stretches when you stay invested—especially when the village girls start vanishing and the stakes rise—but the payoff never quite satisfies. Even the policeman investigating the disappearances feels like he wandered in from another film and forgot to ask for a script.
The film could have been so much more—an atmospheric folk horror with mythic undercurrents. You expect to be scared, but by the end, you just feel okay—not thrilled, not shaken, just a bit underwhelmed. Lastly, full credit to the entire team for the heartfelt gesture of including their mothers’ names in the end credits.
Also Read: Vishnu Manchu completes Twelve Jyotirlingas pilgrimage ahead of Kannappa release on June 27
Cast: Kajol, Ronit Roy, Indraneil Sengupta, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, and Gopal Singh
Director: Vishal Furia
Rating: 3/5
(‘Maa’ is playing in theatres)
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