Mother Teresa & Me Review: Inspiring and gripping!

MOTHER TERESA & ME

Producers: Kamal Musale, Jacqueline Fitschi-Cornaz, Richard Fritschi and Thierry Cagianut

Director: Kamal Musale

Cast: Jacqueline Feritschi-Cornaz, Deepti Naval, Atul Sharma and Banita Sandhu

Platform of Release: Theatres

Rating:

By Jyothi Venkatesh

‘Mother Teresa and Me’ is a poignant and unadulterated story about sublime love and compassion inspired by the life and times of Mother Teresa. The film is also about two women Kavita (Banita Sandhu) and Mother Teresa (Jaqueline Feritschi-Cornaz) who belong to entirely different generations whose passionate and utterly uncompromising lives are interwoven in two parallel stories across generations. What is interesting to note is the fact that the two women realize their vocation despite great personal doubts and come out victorious.

The interwoven tales set out to show us Mother Teresa, the woman behind the myth, in a rather completely new dimension. Her loss of faith inspires the fierce young English woman with Indian roots Kavita, to discover real love and empathy in contemporary Calcutta. Kamal Musale who has directed the film, which is an intriguing story of entwined identities, had earlier also made films like Curry Western and Millions Can Walk.

Also read: ‘Mother Teresa & Me is not a religious film… it’s about human values,’ says director Kamal Musale

The inspiring as well as gripping film sets out to tell the story of Mother Teresa’s earlier years in India from the mid 1940’s, as she was trying to help the poor, sick and dying and also the story of the young modern girl Kavita who travels to India from London in search of answers to some major questions. The portions in which Kavita is seen romancing her phirangi boyfriend are infused with a lot of emotions and feelings.

As far as performances go, I should say that Jacqueline Fitschi-Cornaz infuses the spirit of Mother Teresa in her role with fervor and makes us feel that we are really watching Mother Teresa in person. While Banita Sandhu, who was last seen in the Varun Dhawan starrer October, before she disappeared from the film scene and has resurfaced after six years, plays the role of the British young girl Kavita effervescently, Deepti Naval’s is a soothing presence which elevates the film to a great extent. Deepti, who still retains that winsome smile of hers, proves to the audiences that though she may not be appearing in films more often these days, she still has that actress lurking inside her to whip up emotions in this grippingly emotional film.