Sakshi Tanwar's 'Mai' And The Brilliance Of Vengeful Mothers In Cinema

What does it take to be a mother and till when can you hold before you become vulnerable? Sakshi Tanwar¡¯s new Netflix show Mai assembles all the emotions a mother goes through in this century. The show is embroidered with the threads of grief which are very rarely seen these days. Mai is like Sakshi Tanwar¡¯s portfolio performance to show her worth and what she is capable of which the filmmakers are ignoring for so many years. Sakshi¡¯s performance has made a mark in the OTT space much like the Shefali Shah¡¯s performance in the Delhi Crime or Jaideep Ahlawat¡¯s performance in Pataal Lok. It¡¯s a performance which is going to be talked about for many days.

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Mai tells the story of a mother who is forced to explore the dark sides of a world unknown to her when her daughter is hit by a car. Her instincts tell her that her daughter was killed and so she is all set on a journey to find her killers. Mothers turning vengeful for their children isn¡¯t a new sphere when it comes to storytelling.

Be it Sridevi¡¯s Mom, Raveena Tandon¡¯s Maatra, or even Shefali Shah¡¯s arc in the very recent film Jalsa, they also went through similar plot spectrum. However, what makes Sakshi¡¯s Mai much more interesting than the rest is the way she switches between her so-called ¡®Susheel Bahu¡¯ persona to the 'Mom on a mission¡¯ persona as she digs deeper into the actual secrets behind her daughter¡¯s accident.

The flip is really an interesting aspect to watch out for and Sakshi aces it brilliantly but it happens so much that at times it also gives a feeling of being unbelievable. The way Sakshi divides her time between her family and the patients of the old age home and then suddenly she takes charge against duplicitous cops, evil businessmen, and a gangster without any sort of prior experience. There¡¯s no explanation for the kind of ease that happens suddenly in the shift of her character. The way she releases her tears to get out of a tricky situation and the smart use of her medical training to take on her opponents is worth watching but also feels like an overstepped move.

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The becoming of the vengeful mother might be the need of the hour. However, the transition of a kind, loving mother into a fierce, revengeful woman often forms a great character study. Vengeful mothers often form a great plot device that fights the stigmatisation of society. Whether it¡¯s Tarantino¡¯s Kill Bill or Bong Jong-Ho¡¯s Madeo, the inner kindness of a woman is often used as a seed for being the dispenser of justice whenever something bad happens to their child. However, only a very few films are able to show this character shift in a unique and good way and certainly, Atul Mongia¡¯s Mai lacks this kind of ability but still turns out to be a decent watch which is very rare to see.

Sakshi Tanwar¡¯s Mai lacks a certain kind of conviction, not related to performance but related to the story. Sheel¡¯s sole purpose in a journey to the darker hemisphere of the system is to find her daughter¡¯s killer but her purpose is disturbed because of so many different things that occupy the plot space of Mai. The element of the vengeful mother is there but it¡¯s not covering the entire theme of the show. There is a business that needs to be controlled, a husband slowly becoming separated emotionally, police on an unrelated but urgent mission. Perhaps, the plot would have worked better as a movie with fewer moving devices planned for the progression of the story. Mai, at its core, isn¡¯t invincible, it¡¯s only uplifted by the brilliant performance of its protagonist, which is so good that at times it masks all the plot holes of the show.

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In an interview with IANS, Sakshi Tanwar also talked about how OTT has given space to actors to place to actors to play a layered and well-detailed character and why this role is so special for her.

She said, ¡°We have mostly seen on-screen mothers as 'loving and kind' or 'strict and overbearing'. The viewers are now seeing the various facets and dimensions of the motherhood experience, especially after the advent of OTT. It's a great time to be an actor and to be playing such layered characters because now we truly get to explore every facet of a mother's character that, for so long, was hidden.¡±

Furthermore, she even talked about how she landed the role of Sheel in Mai, ¡°I auditioned for this show by way of a mock shoot, for some of the most difficult scenes from the series, back in December 2019. It was an impromptu expression of what I felt on the spot. Post that, Atul (Mongia) Sir and I did a few intense workshops to understand how much we were in sync and what our collaboration can lead to. Luckily, they thought I was a good fit for the character 'Sheel' and that's how I landed my first Netflix original l series.¡±

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Overall, Netflix¡¯s Mai shows the great potential of Sakshi Tanwar and a potent vengeful mother story that needs to be watched. The process of grief of a child suddenly lost forms various kinds of premises, with Mai things are completely different as compared to Mom or Maatra. While all the other characters of the show might be just an outline but Sakshi Tanwar¡¯s performance outshines in this low-heat thriller and it deserves all the hype.