“Do you need a bigger bag to carry the money?”
A property dealer asks Aman (played by Ranvir Shorey) while paying him Rs 50 lakhs in bundles of Rs 500 notes in Munish Bhardwaj’s Moh Maya Money.
Aman is desperate, the property dealer unscrupulous to cinematic perfection. The bag of money he offers to Aman suddenly makes it all too apparent – that in the midst of the cash crunch crisis, these are the real targets of the government’s black money crackdown.
Yes, Moh Maya Money is a thriller on its own merit; a story about a middle-class couple in Delhi and their descent into fraud and murder. But what the film probably didn’t anticipate was its sudden relevance in times of demonetisation.
Aman is married to Divya (played by Neha Dhupia). He is an unscrupulous real estate agent who is desperate to escape the humdrum of his middle class life. She is a successful news producer in a TV channel, who feels emotionally disconnected to her husband.
The film follows a non-linear narrative, going back and forth in time to establish events from both Aman’s and Divya’s point of view. This works well in establishing the kind of couple that they make – secretive, suspicious, and a little dysfunctional.
The beauty of the film is in its wonderfully etched third character – one that constantly shapes Aman and Divya’s lives – the city of Delhi. Delhi’s been heavily represented on screen before, but for some reason, it comes across as a wholly different character in the film, one that is intrinsically connected to the protagonist couple.
Sample this: When Aman is talking about the importance of taking risks, the Delhi Metro whizzes past in the background – almost symbolic of the city’s emphasis on aspiration. On her way to an abortion clinic, Divya drives through winding lanes in Janakpuri, the latter fitting in seamlessly with the labyrinths of her mind. The epitome of Aman’s ambition is a plot in a posh South Delhi neighbourhood, for which he struggles to seal lucrative deals in dimly-lit real estate agent’s offices.
Ranvir Shorey as the immoral-yet-loving Aman is pitch perfect (especially his Delhi broker accent). Neha Dhupia absorbs Divya’s ambition well, but truly shines in the desperate, visceral moments when she realises she may have lost everything.
Marketed as a thriller about the pitfalls of lust and greed, Moh Maya Money gets predictable after the interval. While Resul Pookutty’s sound design shines through, a tightly edited film would have worked better.
But more than the twists in the narrative, what makes for interesting viewing is the way the characters in the film deal with betrayal and lies from their loved ones. While everyone has a ticking morality counter or certain moral boundaries they wouldn’t cross, Moh Maya Money pushes its desperate characters to test their boundaries – and wickedly nudges them off the edge.
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