Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Maska’ on Netflix, an Indian Feel-good Comedy About a Guy and His Irritating Mother and Their Cafe

Netflix movie Maska is an Indian dramedy whose title references “bun maska,” an Indian comfort-food favorite consisting of buttered bread and tea. Writer-director Neeraj Udhwani’s coming-of-age story is about a young man’s desire to discard tradition and forge a new life path — but does the movie give us something new, or just the same old stuff?

MASKA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: How would you feel if your mother kept trying to turn you into your father? Resentful? That’s sort of how Rumi (Prit Kamani) feels with every birthday, when his mother Diana (Manisha Koirala) gives him something from his late dad’s old locker: a pair of shoes, a jacket, a watch. Frankly, Rumi probably just wants a can of hairspray or, or… something he might like. Whatever that might be. What does he like again? Who knows. Did we see any of that in this movie?

Oh! Right: acting. Rumi wants to be an actor. He dreams of being a Bollywood star, so he takes an acting course to prepare himself for fame and fortune. If only it were so easy, because Diana, as all mega-annoying movie moms do, has other plans for him. He stands to inherit Cafe Rustom, the restaurant founded by his great grandfather 100 years ago. We learn this because his dad, Rustom (Javed Jaffrey) narrates the movie from beyond time and space. But Rumi doesn’t want to spend his life making bun maska, which is, like, totally not a life as a singing action hero romantic screen star. And standing at the crotch of Rumi’s life crossroads is none but the ghost of Rustom, who gives him advice, jokily berates him, makes excruciating puns and says absolutely nothing about Diana’s warped plan to transform his only son into Almost Rustom.

In acting class, Rumi meets Mallika (Nikita Dutta), and the first time he sees her, there’s an enigmatic breeze fluffing her silken hair and some similarly enigmatic golden lighting caressing her supple olive skin. Oh boy. Oh boy especially because Mallika isn’t Parsi and (gasp) is a divorcee, and Diana will have no such scum-woman luring her little boy away from a scenario in which he becomes his dad so they can pursue a thoroughly troubling psychological course. And then there’s Persis (Shirley Setia), a wholesome and earnest young woman who’s documenting the history and stories of Cafe Rustom. Is she an alternate love interest? And and then, the plot finally gets in gear nearly 50 minutes in when Rumi decides to sell the cafe and finance a movie in which he and Mallika will star, in spite of his marked lack of acting talent. Did I mention he’s bad at acting? Well he is. He’s bad at acting. But good at bun maska-making. Now what?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is sort of a gender-reversed Simply Irresistible, minus the magic crab.

Performance Worth Watching: Be thankful Setia’s performance and character is the only one here that isn’t carved out of whole-milkfat cheese.

Memorable Dialogue: Rumi surely gets Mallika all hot and bothered when he pleads, “Please stop giving hickies, baby! I live with my mama.”

Sex and Skin: Just a moment of implied fellatio and some post-coital snoogly-wooglies.

Our Take: First, Diana is the type of impossible character who you’ll want to launch into the densest portions of Saturn’s rings. Second, Rumi is a bland lump of naive doofus-flesh incapable of exhibiting any emotion beyond vague glumness, even when there’s implied fellatio happening to him via Romantic Interest No. 1. Third, every supporting character is rendered with all the depth of a saucerful of chai. Fourth, Udhwani has a real big thing for montages slathered with trite, horrible music. Fifth, one of those montages is roughly 300 minutes of pointless food porn. Sixth, Ghost Dad is very, very annoying. Seventh, the plot hinges on Rumi not only selfishly peddling a century’s worth of urban-Bombay and familial heritage, but also essentially swindling his own mother, who might deserve it, but even then, I dunno about that. Eighth, the swindle means Rumi has to play his ultimate thespian role: his father, which makes Diana so, so, disturbingly happy. Ninth, this is a very attractive cast stuck with an empty, empty screenplay. Tenth, none of this is particularly funny. Eleventh, neither is it at all original. Twelfth, it’s also too long. Thirteenth, it’s also also not very good.

Our Call: Maska wants to be a sentimental comedy, but it’s miscalculated, tonally labored and coated with an odiferous coat of feel-good shellac. SKIP IT!

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Maska on Netflix