By Joginder Tuteja




Two web series and one movie premiered on different OTT channels this weekend - Sunflower, Indori Ishq and Shaadisthan. Each one of it belongs to different genres. While Sunflower is a dark comedy cum murder mystery thriller on ZEE5, Indori Ishq is a violent romantic entertainer on MX Player and Shaadisthan is a social tale about gender inequality on Disney+Hotstar.


Sunflower was carrying good buzz around itself. Given the fact that it has Sunil Grover as the central protagonist, one expected his trademark humor to come to the fore all over again. Moreover, with Ranvir Shorey enjoying the time of his life in front of the camera and playing a cop, and Girish Kulkarni getting to enact yet another author backed part, Sunflower was one web series that I really wanted to catch soon. Thankfully, this Vikas Behl creation with him and Rahul Sengupta taking turns as directors of the show turned out to be a fulfilling affair.


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A murder mystery is a good genre to explore if humor is filled into the proceedings as well. This was seen in Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub, Priya Anand, Amit Sial and Sushant Singh's A Simple Murder also last year. In Sunflower, there is an added range to it which makes it all the more exciting which is that within the first 10 minutes itself, the murderer, victim and the modus operandi is revealed. Now from here till the last shot of the web series, it is unveiled how the needle of suspicion moves firmly from one character to another, which is where the fun lies.


Indori Ishq turned out to be a pleasant surprise of the season. The trailer itself had raised the intrigue though as the story of unrequited love was promised to play on screen. However, what eventually matters is the kind of script and screenplay that it would boast, especially since the web series comprises of largely (relative) newcomers and that too those who are in their late teens/early 20s. When kids from this age group come together, generally it is a school/college tale with bubblegum romance and flowery tales being told. However, this is violent.


Director Samit Kakkad has played with violence of emotions in this well crafted web series where you get to see the kind of psychological disturbances that a youngster goes through when jilted in love. The question it asks is, "Can a man also take help from law if he has been used and thrown away after promise of love from a woman? Does it qualify for rape?" Youngster Ritwik Sahore, who has shown promise as a child actor [Ferrari Ki Sawaari] as well as a young adult [Flames] channelizes his inner Kabir Khan for this part and plays it like Emraan Hashmi.


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What didn't work at all this weekend though was Shaadisthan. Arriving with zero publicity and awareness, this Kirti Kulhari and Nivedita Bhattacharya led movie is a complete amateurish attempt by director Raj Singh Chaudhary (earlier seen as an actor in Gulaal and Antardwand) with Kay Kay Menon making a guest appearance. The film isn't technically good either with camerawork and visuals not impressing at all. Though the first 15 minutes hold attention and then 10 minutes during the pre-climax, a large part of the 90 minutes film bores, and how.


This one tries to make a statement on gender inequality but the written material is such that it could well have been wrapped up in 30 minutes flat. No wonder, the middle portions (based in Udaipur, which should actually have been a highlight) are such a drag that you wonder if the storyteller and the director had gone for a vacation and left actors to do their own thing.


Coming soon


This week sees the release of much awaited Sherni, which features Vidya Balan in the lead. The promo of the film has given the right impression of this being a dramatic thriller where Vidya has a job in hand to capture a man eating tiger and rescue the animal as well as the villagers. The film is about striking a balance between man and animal, and it is this very conflict that director Amit V Masurkar is bringing on screen.


By the look of things, this one comes across as a big screen affair but the current lockdown has resulted in the makers deciding to bring it on Amazon Prime instead. Vikram Malhotra and his Abundantia Entertainment have a long standing relationship with Amazon Prime, courtesy the hit web series Breathe and Breathe: Into The Shadows as well as Shakuntala Devi, which also incidentally starred Vidya Balan in the lead and released around the same time last year. With Sherni, the team is aiming to continue with their successful fun and entertain audiences.


Release dates


Sherni - Amazon Prime - 18th June


(Joginder Tuteja is a trade expert and film critic, and loves to talk and write about anything that is related to films. Views are personal)