Rashmi's mother was relaxing on one of the charpais when Suraj said," Mummy seems to be enjoying this place more than the most comfortable room in the world." Suraj kept looking at the difficulties that the family faced living in the village and still how they made every effort to make their guests comfortable. Rashmi's eyes welled up every now and then thinking of the plight of Nani's condition. They all sat there and talked about how were the last days and minutes of everyone's beloved Nani. The backyard of the house was again a big open space where the entire family would sleep at night on the charpais inside the house. She wanted to live that and feel her presence in every room she walked into. Now when the three were there, Nani was nowhere to be seen, but still for Rashmi everything in the house had a fond memory of Nani. She wanted to click a photo of Nani, her mom, herself and her daughter - four generations together in a frame, but couldn't. Rashmi wanted to see her Nani since she heard about her health condition, and more so after her daughter was born. She had died 3 months ago after living her 94 years long life, having suffered a lot of physical ailments which had slowly reduced her to a body, where only heartbeat and breathing were the only processes going on. Rashmi's mother and her siblings had also enjoyed sitting on the floor with their cups of tea and sharing details of their respective married lives with their mother, Rashmi's Nani. The aangan was the place where all the children of the family had played to their hearts content, enjoyed eating watermelons and mangoes every single evening during their annual summer vacation rituals of visiting Nani. The aangan was a peculiar feature of every house in the village with an open to sky area which was mainly meant to ensure air circulation in the house since electricity was a rare guest in the village.
She got up at once to go to the aangan, the sight of which again started a series of images and visuals in front of her eyes. She kept gazing at the walls some of which were unplastered till her last visit, some still the same exposing the colour of the brick and cement used for making it, just the way they were 10 years back. The outside of the building remained untouched since she had last visited the place 10 years back. Still, MAMA is a pretty strong horror film that's not perfect but it's certainly good enough to watch.Rashmi entered the old haveli gripping her 2 years old daughter's fingers tight, apprehensive of her tripping over the uneven bricks laid at the entrance of the house, she couldn't take her eyes off. The director does a good job at building up the tension but once the creature actually comes it goes away. Not only is the CGI rather poor but the ghost creation just does so many unrealistic things that you can't help but not be frightened of it. I'm sorry but I really don't see why you have to have poor looking CGI bring a film down. Now, what really doesn't work in the film is the CGI "mama" character. The supporting players are good too and this is especially true of the two actresses playing the girls. As for Chastain, it's good that some of her caliber is here because a great performance really helps bring credit to the events in the film. The character development here is something quite rare in horror films but I think it really works itself out nicely. That's not the case here because her character doesn't want these girls, doesn't like how they've changed her life and there's not really any cute scenes. In most films like this you have the good person doing good deeds to protect the ones she loves. I thought that really made the film stand out compared to so many other stories was the character played by Chastain.
He also managed to use this atmosphere and make it very effective during many of the scenes, which were quite creepy at times. There are a few problems that we'll get to but for the most part I thought director Andres Muschietti did a fine job at really creating a dark atmosphere that hangs around the entire film. MAMA is a feature length version of a short film by the director and for most part it's a successful horror film. The two girls slowly start to come out of their state but it doesn't take long for the couple to realize that there's something else with them. Mama (2013) *** (out of 4) A couple (Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau) take in their two young nieces five years after they were kidnapped by their father and spent the majority of that time alone and in the wilderness.