SLIPS INTO PLASTICITY

The trouble is Ali neglects everything else. Most other players in the drama get almost nothing in terms of character construction. Worse, the drama itself barely sustains a cohesive intrigue quotient through the seven episodes. You tend to get distracted after a point as the story gets repetitive.

Aaditi Pohankar makes most of her author-backed role and comes up with a good-enough performance as Bhumika, using the con icts of the character well.

BAAZAAR

DIRECTOR: Gauravv K. Chawla

SHE (NETFLIX)

STARRING: Aaditi Pohankar, Vijay Varma, Vishwas Kini

DIRECTOR: Imtiaz Ali

H H

Net ix’s newest offering She keeps you guessing till the end - probably not in the intended way though. Even as the nal scenes of the last episode roll, you are left trying to gure out what you just watched. Does Imtiaz Ali's new script mean to hold a deeper context? Or is it simply an erratic mess re ecting the confusion that seems to have overwhelmed him lately, obvious in the last couple of lms he directed?

Showrunner Ali has co-scripted She with Divya Johriand the sevenepisode series is directed by his brother Arif Ali (who earlier helmed the 2014 dud Lekar Hum Deewana Dil, incidentally also scripted by Imtiaz Ali). It is Arif Ali's co-director who draws your attention - Avinash Das is a screenwriter-turned- lmmaker who made the interesting little heroinecentric drama of 2017 Anaarkali Of Aarah.

You would expect an engrossing tale of women's empowerment from such a team.

At the core of the plot is Bhumika Pardeshi (Aaditi Pohankar), a

STARRING: Saif Ali Khan, Rohan Mehra, Radhika Apte, Chitrangda Singh

I can’t recall a single notable (or even non-notable) Indian lm based on the plunging dips and giddying highs of the stock market. Do you remember Harshad Mehta? How could you forget the podgy stockbroker who made thousands of Indians rich overnight and then it all ended in a nancial mess in no time at all?

Saif Ali Khan’s Shakun Kothari’s destiny run on the same lines. Except that Saif as the wily ruthless constable from a lower-middle class Marathi background who is inducted in the anti-narcotics squad. Bhumika's mission is extremely dangerous. The covert operation aims to bring down the drug ma a, and when she is picked up the kingpin Sasya (Vijay Varma), one would think she has cracked the case. Of course, there are the twists. She tries moving on twin tracks. There is the suspense drama that the narrative tries setting up as Bhumika pursues her goal. Then there is Bhumika herself, as she struggles to come to terms with using her sexuality as a tool to wrest advantage in her

Vijay Varma, who shot to fame with Gully Boy last year, is impressive in the way he lends screen presence to kingpin Sasya. He is the only other character apart from Bhumika that means anything in the drama that goes on. Varma does well to sustain the character all through, despite the fact that Sasya gets sketchy after a while.

Machiavellian stockbroker is everything that Harshad Mehta would have wanted to be. This is Saif’s most gloriously written and performed part, meaty witty and wicked. He chews into it exposing a sacred hunger that I didn’t notice in his last over-hyped outing.

Saif as Shakun is a true-blue Gujju who won’t let neo-af uence corrupt his cultural integrity. He slips into Gujjucations with the unrehearsed cuteness of tycoon, who has long ceased to be cute to everyone, including his own wife and children.

The trouble with She is that its creator seems wholly overawed by the challenge of creating the ultimate, imposing screen heroine. With that challenge in sight, he ignores everything else that he pens. In the process, the series, its execution and intent slip into a zone of sheer plasticity.

When debutant Rohan Mehra enters the plot as Rizwan there is no Shakun Kothari around. We know Rizwan idolizes Shakun and wants to be like

Vinayak Chakravorty