Aniruddha Bose

Mira Nair's web series was a total bore. She was confused in portraying a 1951-52 period novel written by Vikram Seth in 1993 and depicting it in a web series in 2020. The only part that was praiseworthy was the Art Direction. With a weak script moving at a pace slower than a bullock cart the expressionless artificial characters were vomiting dialogues without feelings. Of course, few veterans of web series in side roles did justice to whatever scope they were given. As for the rest, they vomited dialogues like statues. Especially the main protagonist Tanya Maniktala was awfully bad. Music wasn't so bad. Didn't find anything noteworthy of a over-hyphed period novel. More so with a weak script. Overall like the book, the web series too is over-hyped by Mira Nair name, who has given much better movies in the past.

The story starts off with the death of a of an elderly lady in a North Calcutta residence. Before I forget, the art direction by Tapan Seth of inside of the residence was excellent portraying its realistic ambience deftly. The close-knit family assembles at the onset, mourning the loss of the old lady, her husband duly portrayed by Pradip Mukherjee who portrayed the character with utmost precision. The old man has a son Subhro Rahul Banerjee, working in States, who has come to attend his mother’s last rites and his fiancée, living in Kolkata, aspiring to move to States with a job to join him. Both did justice to their respective roles. Subhro has an elder sister, Mou Sudipta Chakraborty attending her dad’s needs, often leaving her doctor husband to cope alone. Both depicted their diversity of character in their limited scope. The old man has a brother Rajat Chatterjee Kamaleshwar Mukherjee, whose role I would later enumerate. The old man has a stroke, goes into coma, hospitalised and finally discharged in that state for long-term domestic care with dubious outcome. The normal activities, aspirations of the family come to a halt at dad’s long-term prolonged care. What happens next, I would leave it to the viewers to watch. One thing which struct me is the modulation of the sound by Anirban Sengupta and Uttam Sarkar from where it is heard. This is technical perfection which was in Ray’s ‘Nayak’ where the Nayak throws an empty bottle from a running train. These minor technicalities give the film, sound director and the director Indrasis a technical edge to perfection. The cinematography by Santanu De is par excellence. Background music by Joy Sarkar with the use of Rabindrasangeet with minimal musical gimmicks added to the mood as the story rolled. Kamaleshwar Mukherjee, the younger brother fulfilled his role with precision and appropriate emotions, where necessary. This story gives a glimpse of his diversified facets. It would have been worthwhile enumerating some of them either through dialogue or through short snippets in his diverse roles to depict his psychological make-up to the build of his conviction. That’s the only part of the script that fell short in this marvellous movie Finally, coming to the director Indrasis Acharya himself. It is difficult to keep the pace with interest of the viewer in a morbid cult movie. By crisp editing, he and editor Malay Laha manage to keep the viewer’s interest till the end. Pace is a must, be it of a quality film or an ordinary one, which most of the Bengali directors have forgotten now. A slow pace indicates lack of compactness and editing capabilities of the script. Here the script is compact, often each dialogue carrying a two-fold meaning. He handled this movie throughout with immaculate precision and perfection. I believe the compact depiction of this morbid mature theme in a subtle way has fetched him numerous awards for this film: In fact, when I wrote this review, I didn’t read what awards the movie had won. On completing it, I saw the awards were for the categories I already mentioned.

An excellent web series with a strong storyline with powerful performance by Susmita Sen. A must watch

When logic goes wayward, script slows to snail's pace its a Bengali movie of the present era

If this movie has won prizes, it reflects the bankruptcy of Bengali movies.

Sweet movie. A must see for freshness of the moment

A gripping thriller 　 　 　 　 　 Though the story is taken from 'The Invisible Guest', the art of story-telling keeping the suspense is par excellence. It keeps the viewer gripped to the end. As a writer of many thrillers, I felt that was more important.

Sweet romantic movie. Must watch for light entertainment. Sonam Kapoor acted very well

The first season was gripping. From the second season deterioration started. As it progressed more dialogues less action takes off your interest until you get pissed off and call it a day.

I hour 47 mins of insane nonsense. There are better ways of awareness and delivering a message