What Is the Story About?
Manasvi is a happy-go-lucky, confident college-going girl with caring parents. While the hands-on lawyer mom Tara is extra cautious about Manu’s safety, the father Hemant gives her a free hand in making her own decisions. However, as an episode at a college party takes a turn for the worse, Tara takes charge of her daughter’s destiny and seeks revenge. Where’s the tale headed?
Performances?
The performances are uniformly substandard and none of the actors attempt to rise above the mediocrity in the writing/execution. Sai Deodhar’s portrayal, for all her experience on the small screen, is devoid of any impact – neither with the angst nor the concern for her daughter. Tanvi Mundle delivers an equally bland performance, mistaking blank expressions for subtlety.
Sagar Deshmukh, in a rather melodramatic role, has a bad day at work and there’s not much you can expect out of Chinmay Mandlekar, in the shoes of ACP Avinash. Arun Rajput, Yash Malhotra and Tejas Raut hardly make any impression in unidimensional roles as spoilt brats. Ankita Lande is the only actor in the show who shows some spunk and a reasonable screen presence.
Analysis
Maeri, directed by Sachinn Darekkar, is an improbable redemption saga for our times. It takes some primitive thinking for a filmmaker to helm a redemption saga around a rape victim and ruin it with its conservative treatment. He may have even deserved the slightest of credit if there was anything new/original about it but Maeri is bluntly a regressive cousin of Sridevi’s Mom, with minor changes in the protagonist’s modus operandi.
Much like Mom, Tara is also a school teacher in Maeri. The daughter Manasvi, for reasons best known to her, shares a love-hate relationship with her mother while the easy-going father is portrayed as the cool parent. When there’s trouble in paradise, the father is so protective of Manu that he prefers to avoid any legal proceedings in a crime where the daughter is the victim.
Worse, when the mother defies her partner, takes it upon herself, and trusts the judiciary to deliver the goods, the culprits are freed. The father and daughter are so into victim-shaming that they blame Tara for taking the matter to court and sparing them from embarrassment. A guilt-ridden Tara decides to take the law into her own hands to seek justice and teach the perpetrators a lesson.
It’s baffling how a show in 2024 still has the father of a rape victim blaming a mother for initiating legal proceedings against the perpetrators. And the series of culprits, one after the other, keep telling ‘Tu jaanta nahi mera baap kaun hai..’ and claim that the girl deserved ‘it’ for her arrogance. Apart from the rich fathers of criminals, it has another popular storytelling trope – the court has no evidence to put them behind bars.
While it’s understandable that a father will take time to come to terms with the sexual assault of a daughter, it’s perplexing how he never takes the initiative to do the right thing and prefers to mourn at home. He contributes to his daughter’s stigma around the incident. The mother is needlessly antagonised time and again for her choices – when she’s doing something quite obvious and necessary.
Though this will not be the first and last freemake of a popular film, it’s surprising that it doesn’t even aim for an upgrade/different spin. It remains content with its predictability, not even trying to surprise the viewer. There are stock characters/situations all around. Even in the redemption, there’s little/no novelty and the ending is so abrupt that one feels like the team gave it all up mid-way.
Maeri is a revenge saga where the viewer is the victim. Spare yourself from this shitfest.
Music and Other Departments?
Nitin Suresh Sawant’s background score is largely underwhelming, blowing up the drama beyond proportions, without trying to capture the essence of the emotion. Cinematographer Sachin Patekar tries to work around the limitations in his setting and ensures a reasonably appealing visual exterior for the show. The editing is inconsistent, extending the same emotion for a long period on many occasions, without letting the story progress.
Highlights?
Select performances, cinematography
Drawbacks?
Almost everything – story, screenplay, performances and treatment
Did I Enjoy It?
No
Will You Recommend It?
Not at all
Maeri Series Review by Binged Bureau
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