Mom

There are two types of stepmothers in Hindi films. One who spends the entire duration of it torturing and plotting against her stepchildren and another who'll go to extremes to prove she's the epitome of maternal virtue. Sridevi plays one such selfless, loving and protective step mum of a haughty teenage girl in Ravi Udyawar's directorial debut, Mom. Before she assumes this stressful avatar that will consume most of her energy, the actress walks into the frame looking fresh and fabulous in a white suit and silver bangles bringing to mind one of the most iconic portrayals of her career.

It plays out along largely foreseeable, if disquieting, lines, but MOM doesn't strictly fall into the category of a conventional rape-and-revenge drama. It breaks free from the genre constraints on the back of a clearly defined moral and emotional context. It presents vengeance as a choice between two wrongs separated only by their respective degree of severity: galat aur bahut galat, as the titular character puts it. But do two wrongs ever make a right? If all this sounds like a bit of sophistry to justify the act of cocking a snook at the law, it is evident all through MOM that the two vendetta masterminds - schoolteacher Devki Sabharwal (Sridevi) and private detective Daya Shankar Kapoor (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) - are acutely aware of their ethical compass.

Sridevi - the undisputed matinee idol strikes back but this time with a subtle vengeance that's amazingly deadly, incredibly effortless and seamlessly magical in her 300th film of her illustriously glorious 50-years- old career. It takes sheer brilliance from the first time director Ravi Udyawar and the unmatched talent of an actress like Sridevi to turn a tried, tested and beaten to death plot into an intense, hard - hitting and emotionally charging drama. MOM will serve as a hallmark in mainstream cinema based on rape and revenge. Sridevi - the undisputed matinee idol strikes back but this time with a subtle vengeance that's amazingly deadly, incredibly effortless and seamlessly magical in her 300th film of her illustriously glorious 50-years- old career. It takes sheer brilliance from the first time director Ravi Udyawar and the unmatched talent of an actress like Sridevi to turn a tried, tested and beaten to death plot into an intense, hard - hitting and emotionally charging drama. MOM will serve as a hallmark in mainstream cinema based on rape and revenge.

It's always said that 'Since God cannot be everywhere, He created Mother'. MOM is a heart wrenching story, which mirrors the power of a mother in lieu of the aforementioned adage. The film starts off with school teacher Devki (Sridevi) punishing one of her students in school named Mohit for sending a lewd message to her daughter Arya (Sajal Ali), who also studies in the same class. Despite Sridevi's love and affection towards Arya, Arya can't get over the fact that she is her step-mom. There's a constant brewing tension between them. One night, when Arya goes for a Valentine's day party with her friends at a far off cottage, Mohit and his accomplices seize the opportunity to get even with her and land up brutally raping her and dumping her in a gutter.

Devaki (Sridevi) is a high school teacher, who dotes on her step-daughter Arya (Sajal Ali), though the latter doesn't reciprocate as she feels that no other woman can take her dead mother's place. When Arya gets kidnapped and raped by her classmate, his cousin brother and their two accomplices, Devaki decides to use the services of ostensibly shady private eye Dayashankar Kapoor (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) to exact vengeance on the wrong-doers. Sridevi, who made her comeback to acting with Gauri Shinde's English Vinglish a few years back, is in top form as Devaki, a loving mother-turned- vigilante, who methodically goes about avenging her daughter's rape with chilling ruthlessness.

Mom is a film that excels in its cinematic moments. Its revenge based story is a little too familiar, but the treatment and the obsession with finer details make this thriller an engrossing experience. The film is peppered with strong dramatic moments that keep appearing every few minutes and each one leaves a lasting impact on the viewer. The core theme here is that of a mother, struggling to keep the relationship with her daughter alive. That intimate premise unfolds in a more familiar revenge story where an ordinary mother hatches an unlikely but murderous plot to bring vigilante justice to her daughter's rapists.

A mother's love for her children is unparalleled. In a patriarchal society, the male figure is often hero-worshipped and given the task of protecting his family. In Ravi Udyawar's disturbing thriller, the mother becomes the hero, the face of destruction for those who damaged her daughter. Sridevi plays Devaki, a soft-spoken wife whose job is mostly packing lunches for her husband and filling water bottles in the kitchen. Her stepdaughter, Arya (Sajal Ali), refers to Devaki as Ma'am, refusing to give her the dignity of motherhood.

Sridevi plays step-mom in 'Mom'. Her daughter calls her ma'am instead, since the mom also teaches her in school. But more so, because the girl's simply a brattish teenager, with a know-it-all attitude and entitlement issues that gets all of you excessively worried about teenagers anyway--unless you're a teenager yourself. It's undoubtedly hard to raise children at that age. This film, showing the frightening reality of boys at 18 (or under) riding fancy bikes to school, passing on lewd videos to female classmates, snorting coke, downing beers, and generally surveying the much reviled farm-house party scene of Delhi (last observed perceptively in No One Killed Jessica, on the Jessica Lal murder case) is not going to further help a parent's frayed nerves.

High school student Arya Sabrawal gets raped by her class mate Mohit and his aides one of who is a criminal. After the culprits are declared innocent by the court, Arya's step mother Devaki, a school teacher decides to teach them a lesson in her own way but it's not an easy task. A private investigator tries to help her but the police come in their way. Will Devaki be able to avenge her daughter's culprits?

Mom reminds you for the umpteenth time that we're in Nirbhaya country. Like other films on the same subject, debutant Ravi Udyawar's emotional thriller tells you that India, or should that be New Delhi specifically, isn't safe enough for women, especially young girls. And its relevance makes it an important watch. There's a lot packed in here. To begin with, the film dwells on the dynamics of a teenager's standoffish relationship with her stepmom. This entire track is beautifully handled. Then again, it is post the teenager's abduction and assault when the film reveals its true facet. To say anything more on the actual plot is to risk spoiling its surprises.

Several scenes in Mom wordlessly convey more than what can be said through dialogue. In one, a teen is dragged into a black SUV as she's leaving a party and the following sequence offers only an aerial view of the vehicle as it cruises down the road. This GTA view, accompanied by a sinister score, triggers the imagination to picture the possibly hellish acts taking place inside the vehicle. In another, following a spate of rapes in the city, a concerned father seems silently unsettled as he stares into oblivion from the roof of his modest Old Delhi home.

MOM begins with promise. Vivacious teenager Arya goes with her friends to a swinging party, and instead of working off an illicit hangover the next morning, and conducting giggly post-mortems with her school pals, finds herself in hospital, brutalized and devastated. First time feature filmmaker adman Ravi Udyawar sets it up deftly, sketching Arya's (Ali) rocky relationship with stepmother Devki (Sridevi), an overly compensating one with father (Adnan Siddiqui) and younger sister.

A black car speeds its way through a deserted Delhi road on a pitch dark night. An aerial shot shows it halting at a lonely crossroad. Two doors open, and the driver swaps his seat with a person in the rear. The car starts moving again, and sometime before daybreak, its occupants throw a teenage girl into a roadside drain. We haven't been shown the inside of the car, but we all know what could have happened there. Hundreds of media reports scream of such crimes against women every year, but people simply pick up the pieces and move on with their lives. This movie is not about them. It is about a mother who decides to avenge the rape of her daughter because the law couldn't get her the justice she deserves.