For months, Indonesian movie audiences have been talking about one film: Norma, the story of a seemingly blissful marriage shattered by the husband's clandestine affair with his mother-in-law.

It's the kind of plot that was always going to attract melodrama fans. But what has made Norma a nationwide obsession is the fact that it's based on a viral true story.

In 2022, Norma Risma, a woman in Serang City on Indonesia's Java island, exposed her husband and mother's affair in a TikTok video.

Her story quickly racked up millions of views, made headlines, and ultimately brought her a movie deal that has taken Southeast Asia by storm.

Norma, which hit Indonesian theaters in March and Netflix in August, soon became one of the most watched movies, not just in Indonesia but also Malaysia and Singapore, where there are large Malay-Muslim populations.

It follows a winning formula that Indonesian filmmakers have discovered: adapting viral social media scandals. Until this June, Indonesia's highest-grossing film of all time was KKN di Desa Penari, a 2022 horror story adapted from a popular thread on X. In 2023 came Sewu Dino, another horror flick inspired by the same account.

Equally popular are tales of a more salacious persuasion: Ipar Adalah Maut, a 2024 Indonesian movie about an affair between a man and his sister-in-law, marketed as a true story from a TikTok video, and the 2022 drama series Layangan Putus, about a family torn apart by a cheating husband, which also drew inspiration from TikTok.

Such themes are highly taboo in Indonesia, where adultery is punishable with jail time. The new criminal code, set to take effect nationwide next year, outlaws sex outside marriage, and in its most conservative province, couples are already publicly flogged for premarital sex.

But in this culture of religious conservatism, experts say a voyeuristic interest in household scandals thrives. With social media, stories once limited to neighborhood gossip now make for viral pelakor content, a slang term for homewrecker, often used in videos of wives confronting their husbands' mistresses.

Vero, a 42-year-old housewife in Jakarta, has been following Norma's story since it went viral on TikTok. It made her furious with the husband and mother. When I knew this story was being made into a movie, I wanted to see how cruel these two people were to Norma, she recounts.

Ms. Gietty warns that these narratives have a dangerous tendency to blame women rather than the men involved. In these feuds between the legitimate spouse and the illicit lover, the man tends not to receive any punishment, she explains.

The film's screenwriter, Oka Aurora, notes that what sets Norma apart is the involvement of the protagonist herself in the writing process. After intense discussions about her feelings and her mother’s backstory, Oka confirms that the film’s core story remains consistent, with certain parts dramatised for emotional impact.

Today, the real Norma works as an outsourced worker in Serang, her hometown, while her mother has returned home after serving prison time for adultery. Norma’s ex-husband was also sentenced to jail.

Despite the controversial nature of the film, it has ignited conversations about empowerment, infidelity, and the social repercussions surrounding these topics in Indonesia.