How a man’s relationship with his mother -in -law became a viral movie

For several months, the fans of the Indonesian films were talking about one movie: Norma, the story of a pleasant marriage seemed to be shattered by the husband’s secret relationship with his mother -in -law.

It is the type of conspiracy that has always been attracting melodrama fans. But what made Norma obsession at the country level is the fact that it depends on a true viral story.

In 2022, Norma Reesma, a woman in the city of Sirang, on the island of Java, Indonesia, revealed the relationship of her husband and mother in the Tiktok video.

Her story soon achieved millions of views, she was released, and she was eventually brought to her, and eventually brought her a cinematic deal that southeast Asia was taken through the storm.

Soon, Norma, which struck the Indonesian theaters in March and Netflix in August, became one of the most watched films, not only in Indonesia but also Malaysia and Singapore, where there are a large number of Muslim films Malay.

It also follows a profitable formula discovered by Indonesian film makers: adapting viral social media scandals.

Even June, KKN Di Desa Penari, a 2022 horror story about six university students, which came from a famous thread on X.

I am very popular with more charming persuasive stories: IPAR Adalah Mort, an Indonesian 2024 movie about a relationship between a man and his wife’s sister, was marketed as a real story adapted from the Tiktok video. The 2022 Layangan PUTUS series, around a family tearing of a deceitful pair, also got inspired by Tiktok.

Such topics are high taboo in Indonesia, where adultery is punished with imprisonment. The new criminal law in the country is scheduled to become valid throughout the country next year, Give sex outside of marriage – In her most conservative preservation, husbands were already mistaken for sex before marriage.

But in this religious culture culture, experts say, the interesting interest in home scandals flourishes.

With the help of social media, the stories that were often limited to the neighborhood’s gossip of the viral “Pelakor” content, which is a colloquial term for homewrecker and a major word used in videos of wives facing lovers of their husbands.

“With films about these scandals, people are given space to look at the home problems of another person,” said SM Gietty Tambunan, a member of the Jakarta Arts Film Committee for BBC Indonesian.

“Especially because of this conservative culture, people have become more curious.”

Vero, a 42 -year -old housewife in Jakarta, follows the story of Norma since she became a viral on Tijook. She made her “angry with the husband and mother”, as BBC told an Indonesian.

“When I learned that this story was transferred to a movie, I wanted to see how cruelty of these two people in Norma,” she says.

In the cinema, she cried at the height of the movie, when she woven Norma through a crowd of her home to find her husband and mother half of a box in the room.

The scenes of giving to Norma’s husband and her mother resist her, then realize and seize each of the viewers.

“Certainly after filming this they will feel the disease,” a Tiktok user commented on a scene that was kissed for the husband. In the film, a girlfriend who discovers the illegal relationship of the husband is vomited when she holds him in the act.

Mrs. Getti warns that these accounts have a dangerous tendency to put the mostly blame for women instead of cheating men. In these differences between the legal husband and the illegitimate love, “the man tends to not receive any punishment,” she says.

But what distinguishes Norma far away is the participation of the protagonist in the creative process, as the screenwriter in the movie OKA AURORA BBC Indonesia. It is also behind the text of the iPar Adalah Mort and Layangan Pusus, the other two productions inspired by Tiktok.

After extensive discussions with Norma about her feelings and the background of her posterior mother, “the main story of the film remains widely consistent”, although she added that there was “certainly some parts that were a play to play with the feelings of the audience.”

“This movie is also a way for people to unleash emotions and enjoy. So when they leave the cinema, there are things they feel and talk about.”

Today, the real Norma works as an external worker in Sirang, her hometown.

Her mother, Rihanna, returned to the house to live with the family after an eight -month period due to adultery. Rosie, the former Norma husband, was sentenced to nine months in prison.

During his journalistic movie appearing in February, Norma said she encouraged the messages she received from other shelling husbands.

“When I faced (the case), I thought,” Why do I feel cheating by the person closest to me? Am I the only one who suffers from this? Norma said: “It turned out that when I spoke, many people had suffered from the same thing.”

Oka, scriptwriter in the film, repeats the feminist message behind the movie. This is a “small step for women to talk about marital infidelity and violence they face,” she says.

Mrs. Getty says films like Norma, based on real stories about local problems, can be a “empowerment space for women” in a parental community and give them “courage to speak.”

Norma rejected requests to meet the Indonesian BBC, although she continues to share life updates at the expense of public social media – to flow support from his Indonesian colleagues.

This month, pictures on Tiktok, which appears to her as a cake sent by the film production company. I met hundreds of wishes.

“You deserve the world,” one of the users wrote.

Another comment read: “Mrs. Norma, after watching your life story in the cinema, I really wanted to hug you.”