Maaman Review: Promising thoughts meet patriarchy in Sori’s family drama
Maaman Movie Review: Director Prasanth Pandiyaraj’s “Maman” starring Sori, Aishwarya Lakesmi and Swasika, is a family drama that investigates relations between a doting uncle and his nephew. While the film establishes good conflicts, it often ends due to the oblique ideas about the family.
Family plays always make for great stories. There are drama, never ending struggles, and there are plenty of plots and sub-ghosts to create for an entire script. Nevertheless, it is a style that can always fail, if the script is not taken care of. Director Prasanth Pandiyaraj’s ‘Maman’ is one such film that investigates relations between Uncle Inba and his hyperactive nephew Laddu.
The INBA (Soori) is an ideal husband-content according to the line. He respects women in his life – his sister Girija (Swasika) and his mother (Geeta Kailasam) – most. Inba’s sister Girija had to bear the brunt of the sharp words of the society as she has been childless for a decade. When she gets pregnant with Nilan aka Laddu (Preseth Shivan), Inba is more than her husband (Baba Baskar). Let’s keep it in this way – the love of Inba more loving love does not allow her husband to be a husband and the father she wants to be.
When laddus gets pamper by him Mother And the rest of the family, it becomes a problem for INBA when she marries a gynecologist Rekha (Aishwarya Lectmi). Laddus tantrums always dominate the requests of the line for some individual space with their husbands. It paves the way for family conflicts that grow for more than two hours.
Apart from making the film headline, Sori has also doubled as a writer. Director Prasanth Pandiyaraja, who starred the ‘bonnetu’ series acclaimed by critics, and Sori’s intention is to take us back to the age when women were related to the kitchen, primary care and when they opened their mouths about their basic needs, they were labeled.
The first half provides some laughter, thanks to the antics of INBA and Laddu. But, when it is the most fasted, it overbeeles after a point. There were many possible views in the film-Brother-sister relationship, uncle-nephew relationship and man’s relationship with a vocal wife. While the film explains them in detail, it often eliminates the wrong side (or glorious).
One of the holiest voices in ‘Maman’ is the line of Aishwarya Lakesmi. She fights with her husband for a personal place and is often ignored because Laddu needs her MotherNeither Girija nor her husband chip to understand the issues of Rekha. And more when the rated is drawn throughout the time for expecting bare minimum. Just as Laddu refuses to listen to anyone, even Inba does not listen to his wife’s requests again and again.
There is also a great arc in which Laddu’s father (Baba Baskar) is not able to fulfill his duties as a father due to uncle-nephew’s relationship. However, all these arcs are ignorant. Whereas all these relationships are some that we encounter in our lives, they become overseas and overdramatic for their own good. The strength of an ideal family drama lies in its melodrama. But, here too melodrama makes you feel lifeless due to your excesses.
We also find an elderly couple, singrair (Rajkiran) and Pavunammal (Viji Chandrashekhar) in ‘Maman’. When they fight for the smallest things, the husband realizes his price when he is ill. ‘Mammon’ can be seen as a film that can appeal to those who believe that family is everything, even if the relationships are toxic in it. But, people who see it with developed ideas, it is a film that disappoints its women, limiting them to their patriarchal jobs as a soundless machine.
Finely performances by Sori, Swasika, Aishwarya Lectmi and Preseth attracted the audience into the story, yet ironically lead the audience to sympathize with the opposite view of the film’s intended message.
