Translating to “mom sister,” the most recent Netflix India movie Maa Behen comes from director Suresh Triveni. It stars Bollywood icon Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri, and content material creator Dharna Durga.
MAA BEHEN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: In a small Indian city, outspoken and liberal Rekha (Madhuri Dixit) “finds” a useless physique belonging to her neighbor Gupta (Ravi Kishan) in her kitchen. She frantically calls her opposing daughters—Jaya (Triptii Dimri) who’s caught in a dead-end marriage, and Sushma (Dharna Durga), a fledgling influencer—to assist her cope with the state of affairs earlier than her conservative neighbors (together with Gupta’s spouse) discover out. What ensues is a sequence of misunderstandings and comedic hijinks as they work to cowl up the crime and study to raised perceive one another.
What Motion pictures Will It Remind You Of? The off-kilter humor and satirical bent is paying homage to one other Netflix India manufacturing, Darlings.
Efficiency Value Watching: You most likely got here right here for Madhuri Dixit, and for good cause: the legendary actress hardly ever misses. However her co-star Triptii Dimri is the one who steals the present, beginning the movie timidly earlier than ultimately discovering her voice.
Intercourse And Pores and skin: The movie’s textual content depicts the townspeople as titillated by Dixit carrying sleeveless blouses, so you may most likely guess how specific it will get. (In no way.)
Our Take: Dixit, Dimri, and Durga are a robust trio to anchor this movie, and Maa Behen is at its finest when it mines their sophisticated dynamic. The ladies are at odds with each one another, and the closed-minded society that has painted Rekha’s freedom of expression as taboo. After they lastly come collectively and admit their true emotions and hardships to 1 one other, the movie hums.
Triveni’s contact is extraordinarily stylized, bordering on camp, and its impact doesn’t at all times totally land tonally. At instances, there’s narration that fills in background particulars, whereas different instances the narrative proceeds with out this complication. The consequence sometimes seems like whiplash, particularly in a narrative the place lore is all the level.
Our Name: STREAM IT. Come for the crime caper, keep for this nice trio of ladies.
Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a movie and TV author based mostly in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, ELLE, and extra. She is the co-host of the podcast PromRad with fellow Decider contributor Proma Khosla. At any given second, she will ruminate at size over Friday Evening Lights, the College of Michigan, and the proper slice of pizza. It’s possible you’ll name her Rad.
