Madhuri’s ‘Maa Behen’ Laughs In The Face Of Patriarchy

Flipping the Maa Behen narrative

Headlined by superstar Madhuri Dixit, Maa Behen is a Hindi-language dark thriller that blends comedy-of-errors and folksy crime stories-gone-awry narratives. Directed by Suresh Triveni, the story follows a dysfunctional, perpetually squabbling mother-daughter trio: Rekha (Dixit), Jaya (Triptii Dimri), and Sushma (Dharna Durga), Jaya’s half-sister (Nirma ladies anyone?). Their world comes together via a hysterical conference call that Rekha initiates. The premise is that a neighbor, Guptaji (Ravi Kishan), has died by some twisted happenstance in Rekha’s home. 

Rekha, a young widow, is shunned by the denizens of the colony where she lives in a small town in Northern India. But she manages to stay afloat by sheer wit and grit. This unfortunate incident would surely be something that would break the proverbial camel’s back. The parties investigating the missing Mr. Gupta are Maheshwari (Arunoday Singh), Mr. Gupta’s brother-in-law, and the wily Mrs. Gupta (Geetanjali Kulkarni), who penguin-walks into everyone’s business. The mother and sisters must team up to cover up the crime and dispose of the evidence, as Mrs. Gupta is quite a suspicious harpy. On top of that, the colony is in the middle of the pre-wedding celebrations of Goldy (Rrama Sharma), who lost two of her front teeth as a child after receiving a punch in the face for teasing Sushma.

The cast nails their characters

Dixit’s Rekha has to reinvent herself repeatedly to make ends meet: from a masseuse to a tiffin caterer to a cyber cafe owner to a liquor store worker. Still, she can turn on the charm, is good with histrionics and dance moves, can encourage and scare her daughters in one moment, and come up with many hare-brained schemes. 

Tripti Dimri impresses with her acting range, from a simple damsel with butter-won’t-melt-in-her-mouth expressions to a raging woman scorned who recounts how many phulkas she has made after marriage while running her rogue of a husband, Manas (Shardul Bharadwaj), out of the house. 

Dharna Durga’s Sushma is a street-smart character, committed to making it on social media by posting risqué videos. 

Maa Behen – its title playing into sexist Hindi expletives – shows how these women survive abuse, judgment, and misogyny. At the outset, confronted by a purported dead body in their house, the three come apart, bickering and airing their dirty laundry in the open. But when all three women realize that the world is out to extinguish them, they unite. Now the maa-behen has become an unstoppable force. They can redeem themselves from a fiasco, outsmart nosy neighbors, and overcome the subversive men in their lives who are out to exploit their vulnerability. 

Folksy chaos and intrigue

The small-town environment and odd characters written by Pooja Tolani and director Triveni remind me of movies like Dum Laga Ke Haisha and Bareilly Ki Barfi. 

The way the trio tries to hide the body is reminiscent of the mystery comedy-drama series by Steve Martin and John Hoffman, Only Murders in the Building. There is a bit of haplessness in the trio’s inexperience in handling the body. But there is an unexpected turn of idiom. There is intrigue. There is chaos. There is suspicion. There is jealousy. There is a failed poisoning. There is black magic. There are marriages gone wrong. There are failed romances. There is an attempted kidnapping. Who writes the ransom note, and who receives the 5.5 lakh ransom money? 

To make sense of all this, watch Maa Behen streaming on Netflix. 

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