Everyone today is about being ‘woke’, which is a great idea, but only when the ‘wokeness’ translates to action. Unfortunately, Maja Ma, Amazon Prime Video’s first Hindi original film, is one of those woke concepts that fail to translate and given that the film is helmed by actors like Madhuri Dixit Nene and Gajraj Rao, it is a shame.

The idea of a middle-aged woman, devoted wife and mother of two grown children, coming out as lesbian and the strife it leads to is a bold concept where most films are about young people coming out to their parents. But when you give it a Sooraj Barjatya makeover for family watching, then you start questioning whether it was worth it despite a nuanced performance by Madhuri and commendable ones from some of the supporting cast.

One of the biggest issues of the film is that it fails to cross the bridge from caricature to social commentary on several occasions making it cringey rather than funny. Whether it is the whole wi-fi dahi incident, Rajit Kapoor and Sheeba Chaddha’s over-the-top NRI act or the “virgin family” moment. The writer seems to have taken the easy way out while addressing a bold and relevant concept. Madhuri, who plays Pallavi Patel, a devoted homemaker who is famous for her cooking and dancing and is loved by everyone, is accidentally outed as a lesbian by her activist daughter. Before we can even reflect on what kind of anguish/relief/fear it causes for Pallavi or her daughter Tara, it is blown up because someone randomly makes a video of the argument between mother and daughter and the whole society that they live in finds out and she is shunned.

But before we can focus on that, the revelation of her sexual identity threatens her son Tejas’s impending engagement to Esha, the daughter of billionaire NRIs who are so conservative and traditional that they administer lie detector tests randomly to judge people’s characters. And before we can focus on what Pallavi feels about this, we move on to damage control. Well, you get the gist. It would be great if the film actually spent some time on the impact of Pallavi’s sexuality on the interpersonal relations within the family.

Then there is the whole angle of Simone Singh’s character, Kanchan. Despite being Pallavi’s ex-flame and who Pallavi stood up in fear of social stigma, she and her husband remained best friends with the Patel family for years. That one scene where Kanchan confronts Pallavi is nearly not enough, and it feels like a parental guidance way out of a difficult conversation.

If not for Madhuri’s powerful emoting, much of what was going on in Pallavi’s mind as everyone else makes decisions about her sexual identity and what should be done about it would have been lost, making the film entirely useless.

To give the film its due, it does touch on important topics like inclusion, personal choice, gender politics and the sanctity of motherhood. It was nice to see that losing sight of a person’s right to come out on her own terms despite what you believe in was stressed on, as was the idea that motherhood doesn’t take away agency or personal choice from an individual. I love the scene where Pallavi tells her son that she never asked him to put her on a pedestal or when she tells her daughter that she needs a daughter, not an activist.

But the film kind of takes away from it by having the woman’s husband ask for a second chance because he realises what a good wife she has been and how he can’t survive without her. Or when her husband stands up to the society’s committee about Pallavi not being answerable to anyone. Or the fact that Esha not questioning her small-minded parents is considered a sign of unconditional love!

And then there is that Sooraj Barjatya scene of a happy smiling family dancing the garba and Pallavi’s son, who went as far as to get her to some random baba and force her to take a lie detector test, actually pulling her and Kanchan together for a dance.

All in all, Maja Ma is a film with a great concept that is let down by poor writing and subpar direction, but it is an absolute ‘family weekend watch’ with the gorgeous Madhuri there to distract you from the half-hearted handling of several issues or from the fact that a person’s sexuality is at the core of the film, depends on what kind of an audience you are.