'Maaman' Movie Review: Soori, Aishwarya Lekshmi Anchor a Film That Struggles To Contain Its Melodrama

Director: Prasanth Pandiyaraj
Writer: Prasanth Pandiyaraj
Cast: Soori, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Swasika, Baba Baskar, Rajkiran
Language: Tamil
Release: Theatrical

Some fresh moments in Maaman make you wonder whether this will be a subversive take on the familiar joint family saga. The film begins with a childless woman (Swasika) refusing to take part in a regressive baby shower ritual. "Why can’t you sit at the ritual? You’re not able to have a child, too, after all," she tells her husband. She fights for her brother (Soori) to be by her side and lives by her own rules. Unfortunately, this rebellion lasts only until she has a kid; it is then time for her and the film to project all the hate she’s received onto another woman, who has to endure the same cycle of disdain. 

The film has some characters who are written with a light hand. Inba (Soori) is a doting younger brother to Girija (Swasika), and is ready to move the moon and stars to take care of his unborn nephew. There’s Rekha (Aishwaya Lekshmi), a gynaecologist who carries deep respect for her career. And there’s Girija and Soori’s mother, who is perhaps the only in-law in the film who has an almost unproblematic arc. But all of this changes once the baby is born, as these things happen in real life too. However, instead of painting a realistic picture of a child’s impact on family dynamics, Maaman doubles down on the melodrama and hits the brakes on any logical reasoning whatsoever.

That’s also because Maaman has such a wafer-thin plot that its writing forcefully crams in innumerable ideas of unnecessary conflict. The film largely revolves around an uncle’s irrevocable love for his nephew (Prageeth Sivan) — a love so deep that it causes him to push his brother-in-law away to catch the first sight of the baby. But this is not limited to his saccharine acts of affection; Inba puts Nilan to sleep, feeds him, drops him off at school, and what’s more, treats him more like a conjoined brother rather than a nephew. While some of these scenes initially play out in jest, we’re mortified and shift uneasily in our seats when we realise the said conjoining doesn’t stop even after Inba weds Rekha. The rest of the film pits Rekha against the rest of the family, headed by a relentless and often irritating six-year-old.

Maaman goes on to explore other relationships to offset these unsettling courses of events. We have a father who yearns to spend time with his son after years of being fatherless (despite the track accompanied by an unnecessary discourse on manhood), and another beautiful narrative involving a deliriously happy elderly childless couple (played by Rajkiran and Viji Chandrasekhar, perhaps, in another world, representing all the happy DINKs), who show the young ones how it’s done. And of course, the relationship between Inba and Rekha, who struggle to navigate their marriage with a tiny third wheel in the mix. Soori and Aishwarya Lekshmi bring as much depth as is possible to their characters, who are stuck in a bizarre yet easily fixable situation. Composer Hesham Abdul Wahab makes a memorable debut in Tamil, trying his best to lift the mood here.

But let’s ignore the “maaman” shaped elephant in the room for a second. There is a fundamental issue with which the film looks to resolve its issues. When a man hits his heavily pregnant wife, he is given sermons on why women are “goddesses”. When a woman asks for some accountability in a marriage, the man goes on a tirade about being “stuck” in his marriage. And worst of all, the film pits two women and their insecurities against each other. Maaman wants to dissect complex interpersonal relationships, but it unfortunately ends up giving off the aura of a boomer who cracks incessant wife jokes.