'Maa Ka Sum' Web-Series Review: Even Mona Singh can't save this middling show about matchmaking and mathematics

Casting: Mona Singh, Mihir Ahuja, Angira Dhar, Ranveer Brar, Rohan Joshi, Celesti Bairagey, Hetal Gada, Ishankk Salluja, Yuktam Khosla, Gunjan Joshi, Ismeet Kohli, Namit, Nikhat Khan Hegde, Adil Zubair

Director: Nicholas Kharkongor

Language: Hindi

Most of the people’s first memory of Mona Singh goes back to the year 2003 when she did that show called Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin. 23 years later, she happens to be one of the most omnipresent actors of the industry. She could be the female Akshay Kumar. Before we talk about her new show that has dropped on Prime Video called Maa Ka Sum, let’s try and count everything that she has done in recent times- Made In Heaven 2, Laal Singh Chaddha, Subedaar, Happy Patel, The Ba***ds Of Bollywood, Mistry, Border 2, and Thode Door Thode Paas. That’s eight in four years. And now comes the aforementioned series.

_Maa Ka Sum_ is a show where a 19-year-old son is trying to find a match for his mother. This is the kind of juicy premise Priyadarshan squandered when he made the 2008 Mere Baap Pehle Aap. Matchmaking skills and mathematics are combined in this show, with thousands of metaphors thrown in. The show begins quite interestingly. A boy dealing with a traumatic break up, tries to die by suicide. But there is nothing dramatic about the scene. It has been given a comedic touch. But not enough to leave an impact. And that could be said about the dramatic portions of the show as well. It is good to be restrained, but sometimes going all out doesn’t harm either.

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Maa Ka Sum wants to have a realistic approach towards everything that tries to show- relationships, conflicts, confusion, chaos, and everything in between. Writers Ravinder Randhawa and Sumrit Shahi and director Nicholas Kharkongor want to keep the spirit of the show quite restrained. Even the emotional outbursts of the characters are subdued. For stories like these, we needed more depth. But because most of the characters are underplaying the parts that they have been given, it is impossible to empathize with them. It is always a pleasure to watch Mona Singh do whatever she does. But it would have been fantastic to see her go all Kirron Kher and unleash her ham and cheese mode. Remember Kher’s deliciously over the top performance in Hum Tum? That was a single mother as well.

Come to think of it, she is a single mother and living a loveless life. Her 19-year-old son is now her matchmaker. There is a rocking idea right there. A bolstering comedy the explodes in every scene. Even when we see the mother and son together for the first time, the scene does not land the way it should have. The characters actually allow the silences to do the talking. Middling idea. Mihir Ahuja and Ranveer Brar also needed a little more dimension to the roles that have been given to them. Subtlety was definitely not the need of the hour. And those mathematical metaphors become tiring after a point. The title is slightly amusing, but the zaniness in the overall material is missing. Otherwise it could have been a great show. Maa Kasam!

Rating: 2.5 (out of 5 stars)

Maa Ka Sum is now streaming on Prime Video