Mom: Compelling, on-edge drama

Cast: Sridevi, Adnan Siddiqui, Sajal Ali, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Akshaye Khanna

Rated: 8.5/10

It is a difficult venture to knit a racy thriller around a rape incident and even more difficult to not belittle the victim’s plight in the process of playing to the gallery by taking the law into your hands.

But this “justice-denied” rape and vengeance drama is both sensitive and racy, flitting deftly between action and emotion without letting down either — and never ever, not even once, straying from the rape survivor’s unenviable plight and fight with life from behind drawn curtains, silent sobs, skin scratching midnight showers and constant fear after the incident.

And, Sridevi, back after a long gap since making waves as a determined yet gentle housewife inEnglish Vinglish, is the reason why this almost similar rape movie does not plummet down Raveena Tandon’sMaatr way but holds you on to the edge-of-your-seat till the very end of a 2.5 hour drama.

Besides Sridevi giving a performance of her life and one she would love to love herself for, and looking coolly gorgeous in Manish Malhotra’s ensembles, the film is full of constantly chilling reminders about what our society has come to, particularly our Capital Delhi — without being preachy but still being subtly stark.

First time director Ravi Udyawar, artist, illustrator, painter, ad-film-maker and the man behind India’s first underwater video in Mohit Chauhan’s Dooba-dooba song, has given a stunning performance as the helm star of this sensitive film on a sensitive subject.

The crime that curdles your blood is never shown as in-your-face violence. Instead the ploy of “hints” is used as a more potent weapon that makes you cringe with even more ferocity.

The eerie aerial shots of the black SUV in which an 18-year-old girl is being gangraped while the vehicle is traversing isolated stretches of Delhi (with the potent prop of AR Rahman’s chilling music in the background) is perhaps the best shot of the film which is otherwise dominated by the close-ups of a make-up shorn Sridevi who makes magic with her explosively implosive histrionics.

At another level, the film throws up the tension of awkward relationships with as much verve as it does the happiness and solidness of a happy one.

While a silent Sridevi battles her bad knots with step-daughter Arya, endlessly waiting for the day when she would grow up to like and accept her, her husband (Adnan Siddiqui) shares a rare father-daughter bond with the same daughter (Sajal Ali). Ali, the girl who is gangraped, does a beautiful tightrope walk between never really breaking up and always being on the verge of it. Her big, silent eyes do all the talking, convey all the trauma without many words being thrown at you.

Other characters, like detective DK, played by an ugly looking Nawazuddin Siddiqui are well-fleshed out too but it would have worked equally well had Nawaz not been given those awful prosthetics.

As a detective, a father and a sensitive human being, he does his job of helping Sridevi well. Same goes for Akshaye Khanna who is in the habit of walking in and out of Bollywood. In Mom, he plays the no-nonsense cop who picks up the criminals but is so much in the know of how rape battles pan out that he is not overly moved when Arya’s tormentors walk free despite all the evidence being on the court table.

The rapists are the right profile of rapists — a cocaine snorting muscle junkie with a lot of money and no ropes to tie him down to goodness, a schoolboy who knows no law, a compulsive history-sheeter as an aide and a security guard who has no qualms.

On the whole, despite the film fighting the ultimate pitfall of the lead character taking the law into her hands, holds you through the proceedings with everything in place —the star actor, the agonising crime, the wanton perpetrators, a failed justice and enforcement system, a normal but yet not normal family, a crime and a punishment.

This one is a movie to go to, and learn from, even though it is fixated on the dark side of our society and is far, far away from a box-office smasher mould. Since it is about the worst crime of our society — rape — it would be politically incorrect to call it a thriller, but it does compel you to be with it and feel guilty about even wanting to munch popcorn while Sridevi deals with a mom’s worst nightmare. 

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 9 July, 2017