Nandini Reddy: Baby is flawed and unapologetic

The director decodes the relationship dynamics of Samantha-starrer ‘Oh! Baby’

Nandini Reddy with Samantha

Oh! Baby is a film that looks deceptively simple. It’s a quintessential family entertainer in the sense that you can watch it with your parents, grandparents and laugh aloud. At its core is also a complex web of relationships.

The film opened to warm reviews and has reportedly garnered more than ₹38 crore worldwide, no mean feat for a film riding on a female protagonist. It has also crossed the million-dollar mark in the USA.

Talking to

MetroPlus , director Nandini Reddy says the audience response has been encouraging, including a few messages from people who stated that they will never look at the women in their lives the same way.

Cultural interpretation

Nandini had discussions with the Korean team before adapting

Miss Granny , to understand what went into the characterisations. She and writer Lakshmi Bhupala then tweaked it to the Indian context. “I was clear that I’m a cultural interpreter, and didn’t look at this project as an ego trip to prove myself,” she says. Nandini wondered what Baby would have deciphered after the play of destiny that gave her a chance to be young again: “It made Baby count her blessings and realise that she hadn’t appreciated the good things in life. That thought has universal relevance.”

In the film, Baby (Lakshmi, and then Samantha) raises her son as a single mother, after losing her husband at a young age. This is revealed later. When we first see her as a 70-year-old, we notice her affection towards her son, grandson and her childhood friend Chanti, but not so much for her granddaughter and certainly not for her daughter-in-law.

Samantha and Lakshmi

Baby’s fondness for her son, says Nandini, harks back to her days as a single mom: “When she was enduring hardships, her son was the only witness to it and she feels only she knows her son the best. Once he gets married, there’s someone else in that space and she doesn’t like it. She’s fond of her grandson because she feels he’s in some ways like her son, and in some ways like her — in his love for music.”

The granddaughter, on the other hand, is spunky and stands up for her mother. She lashes out at Baby and there’s a reference to her feistiness perhaps being inherited from Baby.

Character with grey shades

Both Nandini and Lakshmi Bhupala lost their respective fathers at a young age and have witnessed their mothers struggle. They brought in their observations while writing Baby’s character. She feels moms depicted in cinema are rarely realistic, with flaws. “Baby is a tricky, flawed and unapologetic character and that’s why I wanted Lakshmi garu to do it. In the initial portions when she’s constantly nagging, you feel like slapping her. Until the point where she picks up a fight with Urvashi and declares that she will walk away from the house if that’s good for her son and daughter-in-law. Many a time, when people are annoying, we don’t think about what made them so.”

The scene featuring Aishwarya as Naga Shourya’s overbearing mother was one of the additions for the Telugu film, to show how Baby gets a taste of her own medicine. The casting of Aishwarya (Lakshmi’s daughter in real life) was deliberate. However, it’s a brief scene. Didn’t the daughter-in-law (Pragati), deserve more empathy? “I would have loved to dwell on it some more, but the film was getting lengthy. Our main focus was to show Baby’s journey and explore her bond with Chanti,” reasons Nandini.

A real struggle

Talking about Pragati’s character, Nandini underlines that she’s passively aggressive, finding her voice only once the mother in law is out of the scenario. “Before that she doesn’t express her thoughts to her husband, who’s caught between the wife and the mother. This struggle is real in many families.”

Sunaina, Nandini and Samantha on the sets of the film

When the conversation moves to the part played by Sunaina, a 30-plus single woman who’s taunted by baby, Nandini states that she wanted to make the conflict between her and Baby like a Tom and Jerry tussle. “Sunaina’s character is equally vicious and celebrates when Baby is not around. What annoys her is that her father, Chanti, won’t admonish Baby.”

While the film has been widely appreciated, a few on social media have pointed out niggles, feeling that a female director making a female-centric film ought to have addressed issues even more carefully. Are women directors, by virtue of their gender, weighed down by expectations? Nandini says with a laugh, “We are very few and it’s easy to pick on us. We are expected to be awesome, always.”

On a serious note, she says, “It’s not like I haven’t shown anything insensitive. On hindsight, I wouldn’t have had that scene in Ala Modalaindi where Nani pretends to be effeminate. My intention was not to poke fun at gay people. Back then, when there wasn’t much discourse on this topic [LGBTQI+], I wanted to dramatically show what gay means in a way that everyone will understand. I wouldn’t do that now.”

Nandini reveals that she and Samantha will come together again but before that, she will be directing another film.