Maya (2015 Tamil film)

Maya
Directed by	Ashwin Saravanan
Written by	Ashwin Saravanan
Starring	Nayantara Aari Amzath Khan Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli
Cinematography	Sathyan Sooryan
Edited by	T. S. Suresh
Music by	Ron Ethan Yohaan
Production company	Potential Studios
Distributed by	Sri Thenandal Films C.Kalyan (Telugu)
Release date	September 17, 2015 (2015-09-17)
Running time	141 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Maya is a 2015 Indian horror film written and directed by Ashwin Saravanan. It features Nayantara in the lead role, while Aari, Amzath Khan and Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli play supporting roles. The film received positive reviews from critics. It was dubbed into Telugu as Mayuri.

Plot

The movie starts with Vasanth drawing a sketch about his new episode on Mayavanam, showing a women in the dark sitting in a wheel chair. He surprises his friend on his birthday with a horror anecdote similar to that of Bloody Mary. The friend who doesn't believes in superstitions like these, calls out the name of "Maya" thrice. He sees the silhouette of a lady standing behind Vasanth and falls back in fear. Suddenly, Vasanth pops a confetti blower and surprises his friend, revealing the girl in disguise to be his friend's wife.

Vasanth is warned about a woman named Maya Matthews by his editor-in-chief Ram Prasad, who is also the husband of Vasanth's ex-lover Anjali. Ram introduces Catherine to Vasanth, who has written a book titled "The Madness in Asylum" about the life of mentally-ill people who were forced into asylum and used for testing medicines, finally being buried. Madhan, the episode writer for the story, recalls a flashback about Maya. Maya Matthews is a rich, young women who gets married to her lover. On their first anniversary, she comes to find out that her husband was having an affair and that she is pregnant. She kills her husband with poison, due to which one of her relative admits her in mental asylum. There she delivers a baby girl but within a week, the baby is forcefully taken away from her. She tries to escape from the asylum, but never succeeds. A medical test is done on her, causing her to lose her eye sight, and one day, she subsequently jumps off from the building and dies. It's rumored that she had been found wearing an expensive sapphire ring, presumed to be her wedding ring. They say it's invaluable and was buried along with the rest of her belongings in the casket. From that day onward, speculation is that her spirit roams the asylum and kills the people working there.

Vasanth doesn't believe in ghost stories, but his friend does and joins Madhan on his trip to Mayavanam. There, Madhan gets lost and a guy finds Madhan in a stretcher, used by asylum to bury Maya's corpse. Frightened, he runs to house but never comes back out. One day, Vasanth sees someone trying to jump from the roof of the building. He runs in an attempt to save the person, but they fall before he could help. However, when he arrives at the location expecting to see a body, there is nothing. A few days later, Vasanth's friend commits suicide from his flat. Looking back on the recent events, Vasanth plans to go to "Mayavanam" to investigate the reason behind.

The screen cuts and opens with Apsara (Nayantara) waiting for her audition. Apsara impresses the director with her performance. She's revealed to be an orphan and a single mother - separated from her husband, Arjun (also an actor) - living with her friend Swathi who works at RK Studios. She constantly feels like there's a presence revolving around her and her baby. She's in debt and a situation requires her to procure money fast. A producer had shot an advertisement with her and hasn't payed back the promised money that he owes her. Since her debts are piling on, she decides to confront the producer at his office, but he's nowhere to be found and doesn't pick up her calls either.

Meanwhile an alternative solution appears. RK Studio announces a promotional contest revolving around their film about Mayavanam, named "Irul". They're offering 5 lakhs to contestants provided they agree to five conditions. The producer who owes Apsara money is seen accepting this challenge and begins watching the movie. Seeing this, Swathi informs Apsara and tells her to come as soon as possible, hoping to catch the producer before the movie ends in 30 minutes. As the movie is about to end, Swathi walks away to attend a phone call. In this period of time, to his shock, the producer sees himself on screen as part of the movie. The producer dies as the film ends, leaving everyone shell shocked, with Swathi raising concerns.

Apsara is confronted by the person that she owes money to, and so to repay her debt, she decides watching the movie is the only way. She accepts the challenge, much to Swathi's dismay. The movie starts to play and it's revealed that every scene that the audience has been watching, aside from Apsara's life, was actually the movie "Irul" itself. This includes Vasanth, his friend, and Madhan. As Apsara continues to watch the movie, it starts from the audience had been left off - with Vasanth entering "Mayavanam". Suddenly, two hands cover her eyes from behind and she finds herself in "Mayavanam". A totally clueless Apsara starts to walk through the forest, only to find Vasanth being held at gun point by Ram Prasad. Catherine had caught Vasanth taking pictures of Ram searching for Maya's casket.

They are both held hostage by Ram, when they hear Ram's henchman, who was digging their grave, scream. It turns out to be a hoax, but they end up discovering Maya's casket, including the dairy she had kept while she was in the asylum, and a doll she had kept for her child. The ring, however, is nowhere to be found. Ram begins to redirect his frustration towards Vasanth as Apsara watches on. Suddenly, everyone sees a ghost levitating behind Ram. They split off running in different directions, with Vasanth grabbing Apsara, but the two are eventually split up as well. Meanwhile, Ram gets killed.

The forest officer working closely with Ram enters the forest with a gun to check on the group of people, but instead finds a stretcher with Ram on it. Meanwhile, Apsara finds an old dome-like structure in the forest where there is a small pond of water and she sees her own reflection in it. Realizing something is wrong, she makes a run for it, but she's shot by the forest officer. To his shock, she is caught by Maya's spirit from falling on her head, and it is revealed that Maya is Apsara's mother as Vasanth watches on. Mother and daughter have an emotional reunion for a few seconds, before Maya kills the forest officer as well.

Apsara subsequently wakes up in the theatre (the real world) next to a frantically pleading Swathi. Arjun is waiting for her as well, holding her baby in his arms. It's revealed that the person who portrayed Vasanth in the movie is really Arjun. Everything that happened to Apsara feels like a dream for but she finds her mother's diary and the doll she had kept for Apsara on her lap, leaving her confused and clueless. It's then revealed by Swathi that the producer who owed Apsara money was the one who had admitted Maya to the asylum. He had watched the screening just to make sure whether any details about his involvement showed up in the movie, when he was killed. The director had investigated this in private and revealed it only to Swathi, after Apsara had been grabbed by the hands. Swathi also mentions that the ring was supposed to be with the producer when he started watching the movie, but it wasn't found. Swathi wonders why, but Apsara declines to investigate, feeling content with the fact that she received what her mother had meant for her (the diary and doll).

RK Studios holds a press meet about the success of "Irul" and the director talks about a sequel covering the real story of Maya, since the first film was just about the forest of "Mayavanam". He mentions that Maya's real daughter Apsara will play her mother in the movie. At the end, Apsara is seen getting ready for the shoot and getting some encouragement from her husband Arjun. The shooting of the movie begins in the old asylum building in "Mayavanam" and the director says "action" for the first scene, with Apsara ready and sitting with her back facing the camera in a wheel chair. It's then revealed that the director had stolen the ring from the dead producer having seen it before anyone else.

The movie ends with someone tapping Swathi's shoulder from behind while the shooting begins and everyone is shocked to find it to be Apsara. As everyone looks back in horror to the person sitting on the wheel chair, the director is killed and the ring he had stolen from the producer falls to the floor as everyone watches on.

Cast

• Nayantara as Apsara
• Aari as Vasanth and Arjun
• Amzath Khan as Ram
• Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli as Swathi
• Robo Shankar as Forest Officer
• Mime Gopi as RK
• Sharath as Kamal
• Uday Mahesh as Madhan
• Reshmi Menon as Anjali
• G. M. Kumar as Arunachalam

Production

The producers were insisted that a leading heroine played the lead role, despite it being shot on a modest budget and Nayantara was subsequently signed on. Aari was also selected to play a pivotal role in the film, after the makers were impressed with his performance in Nedunchaalai (2014). The film began shoot in June 2014 and schedules were canned continuously in Chennai. The film completed shoot in October 2014 and the team revealed that the film would be released in late 2015.

Soundtrack

Untitled

Maya's soundtrack was composed by newcomer Ron Ethan Yohann. The soundtrack album was launched at RadioCity on July 13, 2015.

Tracklist

No.	Title	Lyrics	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Aayiram Aayiram"	Kutti Revathi	Chinmayi	4:56
2.	"Naane Varuvaen"	Uma Devi	Swetha Mohan	4:54
3.	"Thoonga Kangal"	Kutti Revathi	Shakthisree Gopalan	4:21
4.	"Always A Woman"		Instrumental	3:44
5.	"Dark Hours"		Instrumental	5:11
6.	"Hope & Despair"		Instrumental
Total length:				23:06

Release

The official trailer of the film was released on June 18, 2015. The film released September 17 worldwide simultaneously in Tamil and Telugu.

Critical reception

The Times of India gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5 and wrote, "Maya is wholly original and cerebral as well. Even after the film has ended, we keep thinking about it, replaying the scenes in our mind and thinking about the inventiveness in how the plot lines are brought together. And that is its real success". Sify wrote, "Maya is a stupendous film and the entire team has done a remarkable job on par with international standards", going on to call it "undoubtedly one of the best horror movies of Tamil cinema". DNA India gave it 3.5 out of 5 and wrote, "Maya is more atmospheric and it’s the performances by the lead actors that really lend to the film more than the actual ghost. In Maya, you find a de-glam Nayanthara who has essayed her role brilliantly". Filmibeat gave 4 out of 5 and wrote, "Maya cannot be categorized with some of the other Tamil horror flicks that released in the recent past. This film's sole intention is to scare you and the debutant director Ashwin Saravanan has managed to do that pretty convincingly". Behindwoods gave 2.75 out of 5 and wrote, "Debutant Ashwin Saravanan offers a multi-layered ghostly tale with style and clarity...Good production and sound design along with cuts handled well by TS Suresh, make Maya stands as a gutsy watch". The New Indian Express wrote, "Slickly crafted and engagingly narrated, debutant Ashwin Saravanan's Maya is built around some eerie happenings around a mental asylum...A pure horror flick, the film is devoid of any comedy elements. The director has managed to maintain suspense from the beginning to the end".

References

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