Cast: Konkona Sen Sharma, Surya Sharma, Shiv Panditt, Shraddha Das, Iravati Harshe, Sagar Deshmukh
Director: Rohan Sippy
Streaming On: JioHotstar
Language: Hindi
Runtime: 6 episodes of 45 minutes each
Have you ever feasted on an average tasting platter? Well, the basic rule to feast is to consume it while it’s piping hot. Because once it turns cold, you can figure out all that is wrong! This is the exact case with Konkona Sen Sharma’s Search: The Naina Murder Case!
Search: The Naina Murder Case Review: What’s It About:
Taking its inspiration from a Danish Show, Killing, this Indianized version starts right with everything Indian! An ACP officer, relocating to make her marriage work, her colleagues throw her a party with a fake encounter, a cocky replacement officer trying to strike up a banter that will eventually be loved by the audience!
Anyways, this entire extra and unnecessary extended sub-plot is wrapped within ten minutes, and the show, after wasting these 15 – 20 minutes, dives into the main plot of the web series. Konkona Sen Sharma, who plays the ACP, is handed over the responsibility of a murder case. A college-going girl, Naina, whose body is found in the car of a local politician!
Rohan Sippy tries to make a social comment through the premise – the show, in fact, tries to touch a lot of points in its 6-episode arc. Right from parental pressure, social media repercussions, teenage rebellion, everything is talked about, but only for the sake of discussing it – very superficially. They merely keep adding suspects and their motives for the murder!
Search: The Naina Murder Case Review: What Works:
Search: The Naina Murder Case is a masterclass on how to take a source material and turn it into a formulaic, drawn-out Indian drama that relies solely on its lead actor’s power and her talent to keep the audience engaged. In fact, Konkona Sen Sharma deserves all the applause for injecting life into a script that is, frankly, very loose. Basically, there is Naina, who is murdered, and suddenly, with each passing episode, the web series starts turning every major character into a suspect!
For the initial four episodes, the series tries to keep you circling around the complex web of suspects, from the politician whose car is involved, Shiv Panditt, doing a decent job with a tired trope, to the victim’s own shady college friend. But the cliche works due to Konkona’s presence!
Search: The Naina Murder Case Review: Star Performance:
The single, undeniable high point of this series is Konkona Sen Sharma as ACP Sanyukta Das. She is introduced as a woman on the verge of quitting to save her troubled marriage, only to be dragged back into a high-profile murder of a teenage girl, Naina. Konkona’s struggling balancing act of nailing a cop but failing at her domestic life could have been a highlight of this show if presented in an engaging script.
Meanwhile, the raw grief portrayed by Iravati Harshe playing the victim’s mother also hits home, lending a much-needed emotional anchor to an otherwise cold narrative for a series that highlights the murder of a young woman in a metro city.
Search: The Naina Murder Case Review: What Doesn’t Work:
While Konkona Sen Sharma shines as an ACP officer, the writing of this show is astonishingly weak. There are instances when I just go back to the place where Konkona played a brilliant grieving mother, in Talvar, another murder case, based on the infamous Arushi Talwar Case, where Irrfan played the cop! Looking at the tables turned with Konkona playing the officer could have been a breath of fresh air.
However, with the weak writing, we are forced to walk through subplots that have been beaten to death in every second show streaming today, the obvious professional friction between Sanyukta and her junior, played by the brilliant Surya Sharma, though the banter is annoying! There is a corrupt politician who needs to be the suspect, since it is the prototype for such scripts! Apart from these two mandatory plot points, the obligatory marital drama acts only as padding for the show rather than bringing depth to Konkona’s character arc.
Search: The Naina Murder Case Review: Last Words:
The major downfall for Search: The Naina Murder Case arrives in its last two episodes when it starts to rush towards the end. It lacks conviction, and the climax arrives with a cliffhanger that none of us needed, at least for a show that was itself relying only on Konkona Sen Sharma’s sheer brilliance. It never decides if it wants to be a loyal, slow-paced character study like the original show or if it wants to be a fast-paced whodunnit. It keeps hanging somewhere in between and reaching nowhere. The background music makes it worse, to be honest!
With the most annoying cliffhanger, this web series abruptly cuts, leaving loose threads and unanswered questions that feel less like anticipation for Season 2, which none of us needs! You walk away feeling cheated, the excellent efforts of Konkona Sen Sharma nullified by a finale that is only clickbait! I came here for Konkona Sen Sharma, I stayed for Konkona Sen Sharma, but honestly, I regret my decision after reaching the finale.
2.5 stars.
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