Maaman movie review: Soori's family drama suffers from misdirected emotions and overstretched familial bonds

Maaman movie plot:

Girija (Swasika) is Inba’s sister (Soori), who gives birth to a baby boy after being called childless for a decade. So naturally, when Nilan aka Laddu (Prageeth Sivan) is born, he is showered with so much love, and Inba becomes his doting uncle. The duo almost spends most of the time together, and no one sees anything wrong in this overtly affectionate and possessiveness, until Inba gets married to gynaecologist, Rekha (Aishwarya Lekshmi), who begins to miss personal space with her husband.

Maaman movie review:

If it is one thing to write likeable characters onscreen, it is equally tougher, if not more, to write likeable child characters for films. With the natural quality of cinema to enhance and extend simple characters, with a little more extravaganza and cinematic liberty of being dramatic, child characters can often come across as annoying and over the top. Unfortunately for Maaman, the film falls in this category, where the reason for conflict is stretched and tested far too long for you to empathise with the people onscreen.

In Maaman, we see Inba (Soori in his rural avatar) as the typical specimen from the male category of homo sapiens. He is a do-gooder to everyone, and that doting man you never fail to admire. But that all remains to the outsiders and extended family members. When it comes to his wife Rekha, he is no different from someone who doesn’t flinch a bit to slap his heavily pregnant wife, whose only wish in the film is to have some personal space with her husband. You may ask what the issue is. Well, when an overtly brattish Nilan doesn’t refuse to give his space besides his uncle wherever he goes; right from his wedding night to going on to destroy honeymoon plans, which Rekha wouldn’t get riled up? Maaman, in many ways, makes the adamant and hyperactive Nilan the centre of focus, and his gimmicks are expected to land as cute and childish. But the film stretches it far too long, and it can test you.

Haven’t watched Soori’s Kottukkaali and Viduthalai yet? Also stream director Prasanth Pandiyaraj’s Vilangu web series. Watch on OTTplay Premium

The film talks about varied topics, which either go underexplored or end up on the wrong side of political correctness. An example of the former would be when Rekha brushes upon the topic of Nilan’s hyperactivity. It gives us the belief that the film could possibly delve into this topic and explore the angle which could have made both utmost sense and been an awareness arc, but what we get instead is Girija yelling at Rekha for calling her child ‘paithiyam’. Instances like this show Tamil cinema is still far away from talking about certain disorders. 

And when it comes to issues that need political correctness, there is a parallel track of an elderly couple, Singarayan and Pavun (Rajkiran and Viji Chandrasekar), in which the husband mentions that his wife brags that her husband never raised his hand on her. Would that require us to feel proud about the man? There are many such pitstops in Maaman, that needed the makers to sit back and think before going on to show how much a man keeps grumbling to help out his sick wife, who is bedridden and requires some attention and care.

But back to the central conflict, Maaman feels like it gets a lot of leeway with the titular relationship. When a barely six-year-old child is the troublemaker, it is both astonishing and unbelievable to see how the number of adults around him cannot control the child. While it is understandable that he is a child who was born after a long wait, we are also shown how his mother even beats him when he cries for his uncle. A parallel track with Nilan’s equation with his father is brushed upon and again left unexplored. And to top it off, Maaman feels that it never saw fixing required for its conflict, when it ends on a similar note with the child never stopping to be a brat, even as he addresses an elder with an unrespectable ‘da’ in public, and others just laugh it off.

Maaman movie verdict:

Maaman is a family drama that isn’t a tearjerker, but tests a lot with your patience. The film could have been interesting had it explored the pockets that it only brushes upon. Even as the cast puts up a good show, the writing needed much backing and hesitation in some places.