Remember those films in which a woman tries to curry favours with her hostile in-laws by becoming the perfect housewife? Maa Inti Bangaaram is and isn’t that movie.
Swarna (Samantha) and her husband Anirudh (Diganth Manchala) are keen on making peace with Anirudh’s family. They did not approve of the marriage and are suspicious of Swarna when they eventually meet her (with good reason, as it turns out).
In her past life, Swarna was a member of a revolutionary group led by Karuna (Gulshan Devaiah). With Karuna out of the picture, Swarna is pursuing domesticity with a vengeance. At least, she’s trying to.
But her in-laws (Anand and Gauthami) are singularly unimpressed. The over-efficient elder sister-in-law Anasuya (Sreemukhi) gives Swarna a complex.
Just when it appears that Swarna has won over the family, with some help from her friend Kiranmayi (Manjusha Mukkavilli), she hits a hurdle.
BV Nandini Reddy’s Telugu-language movie is out on JioHotstar after a theatrical run. Maa Inti Bangaaram enters a well-stuffed category of assassins trying to go straight but forced to revert to violence when their past catches up with them.
The film has traces of the wry humour and the tension involved in keeping secrets that can be found in The Family Man. The movie and the web series share Raj Nidimoru, who’s credited with the story of Maa Inti Bangaaram and has written the screenplay with Vasanth Maringanti and Prahas Boppudi.
Before it cleaves to convention, Maa Inti Bangaaram has a lot of fun sending up family melodramas. The period setting allows for an Ambassador to be used in a breathless chase. Household items becomes weapons of destruction.
Swarna’s bumbling provides ample opportunities to gently rock the boat of domesticity, if not quite shatter it. Her clumsiness, Anasuya’s apple-polishing and Kiranmayi’s exasperation are entertaining and cheekily subversive too. In exploring Swarna’s efforts to be regarded as the “bangaaram”, or the treasure, of the household, the movie spoofs the expectations placed on women.
Despite going on for far too long – 154 minutes is hardly a desirable length – and losing its grip towards the finale, the film fulfils its brief of delivering an offbeat action comedy while also giving Samantha the opportunity to flex and fire away at will. Samantha is convincing as a klutz and an action heroine.
Samantha has solid back-up from the supporting cast, especially the hilarious Manjusha Mukkavilli (whose “Let’s come on” exhortation is an instant classic). Samantha also has a formidable adversary in Gulshan Devaiah, who’s chilling and excellent as the ironically named Karuna.
While forcing Swarna to reveal her true face, Karuna takes the film in another direction. Maa Inti Bangaaram doubles up as an allegory about sexual abuse. Karuna’s dynamic with Swarna has thick lashings of the relationship between an abuser and his victim. Karuna is the one person who has the usually fearless and resourceful Swarna in a vice-like grip.
