Rohan Sippy’s desi take on Nordic noir, The Killing, currently streaming on Jio Hotstar, touches upon the dangers of the virtual world, parenting, and women’s safety, but wraps it all up in unseemly haste
The bruised and bloodied body of a college student is fished out of a lake. Two Mumbai police officers are assigned to investigate the grisly murder, and as clues and suspects keep tumbling out, the duo struggle to uncover the identity of the real killer. The pieces of the puzzle seem to appear and fall apart at the same time, refusing to fit together.
Search: The Naina Murder Case, a desi murder mystery currently streaming on Jio Hotstar, isn’t without its flaws. But the six-episode whodunit remains largely watchable, thanks to the accomplished Konkona Sen Sharma. Konkona, who was last seen in a hilarious face-off with Pankaj Tripathi in Metro… In Dino, elevates the crime thriller several notches higher than it might otherwise deserve.
Konkona plays ACP Sanyukta Das, an upright and dedicated cop constantly battling the challenge of balancing her demanding 24×7 job with her personal life. Too often, the needs of her husband and teenage daughter slip off her radar, overshadowed by the urgency of solving the brutal murder of a teenage girl.
Dangers of social media
There’s another reason to watch this show: it’s an adaptation of the acclaimed 2007 Danish series Forbrydelsen (The Killing). Nordic noirs — with their atmospheric settings, dark themes, and complex characters — have resonated with Indian audiences for quite some time now. What makes them so immersive is their ability to double up as social critiques of our times, featuring protagonists who, however messed up their own lives are, possess a certain moral superiority. American crime drama Mare of Easttown, starring Kate Winslet, a series often compared to Nordic noir and hugely popular in India, was an engaging commentary on people, character-building, and the dismal portrait of a troubled small town.
Also read: Killer Soup review: Konkona, Manoj Bajpayee spice up crime series with their chemistry
But The Naina Murder Case, directed by Rohan Sippy (writer and producer of Netflix’s noir Aranyak and Hindi films like Kuch Naa Kaho), set against the sprawling, soulless skyscrapers of Navi Mumbai, lacks a solid backbone to rest on. The director moves swiftly from one issue to another — be it parenting, the unfathomable and murky depths of social media and its perils for teenagers, or the long-standing struggle of women to balance work and home. Nothing is handled with a firm, lasting hand, even when the series superficially touches upon women’s safety in a country where teenage boys casually label a girl an “attention whore” in a heartbeat.
Konkona Sen Sharma elevates the crime thriller several notches higher than it might otherwise deserve.
It’s only Konkona’s visible stiffening and her caustic remarks during the interrogation of a college student that make the boy shift uneasily in his seat. Too often, characters merely skim these issues, tossing in stray statements here and there. For instance, Konkona’s Sanyukta and her colleague, ACP Jai Kanwal (Surya Sharma), briefly allude to how strict parenting can push children to hide things from their parents. But neither that nor the faceless dangers of social media for teenagers is explored meaningfully. There’s definite scope here for an Indian Adolescence.
The plot centres around the murder of a college student, Naina Marathe (Chandsi Kataria), who is presumed to have been raped, her body discovered inside the boot of a car submerged in a lake. ACP Sanyukta Das (Konkona), who is set to move to Ahmedabad with her husband and teenage daughter to prioritise her personal life over her demanding job, gets assigned the case on her last working day. The pressure mounts on the police force when it’s revealed that the car Naina’s body was found in belongs to a politician (Shiv Panditt), a man ironically developing a safety app for women.
Undone by weak writing
Das is accompanied on her hunt for the killer by her replacement, ACP Kanwal, who is high-handed, immature, and desperate to solve the case in a hurry. The two are at odds with each other at first, even as Das grapples with her failing marriage and an overwrought teenage daughter seeking solace by scouring the Internet. The case becomes messy as the evidence against their initial suspects, Naina’s college mates, begins to fall apart.
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This world, inhabited by today’s teenagers and dominated by apps like Pictribe (which allows them to chat in secrecy), is frightening. Parenting has never been harder, as parents, like Naina’s mother and even Das, seem completely clueless about what their children are doing in this all-too-unfamiliar parallel online universe.
Konkona Sen Sharma’s Sanyukta Das and her colleague, ACP Jai Kanwal (Surya Sharma), briefly allude to how strict parenting can push children to hide things from their parents.
We also see Konkona’s Das grappling with fear as she checks her daughter’s phone, disturbed by some revealing photographs she stumbles upon. Why is her daughter taking intimate pictures of herself? But before the viewer can fully grasp the enormity of this modern parenting challenge, the story veers off in another direction. An older married professor and a friend of Naina’s father emerge as new suspects in the later episodes.
Amid the chase, Das also has a flight to catch to Ahmedabad, an attempt to placate her long-suffering husband, who feels she’s not emotionally involved in their marriage and family life. The series never really explains why Das always puts her job first, except for a brief, muddled reference to her being an only child who has always had to look after herself.
The fault in the series lies in its weak writing and failure to provide a strong backstory for any of its multiple characters. Naina’s father (Sagar Deshmukh), for instance — anguished and broken by his daughter’s death — behaves inexplicably in the end, and we are given no insight into his motives. Perhaps Season 2 will explore this further, but Season 1, on its own, fails to stand firmly without rooted characters or a coherent plot. Everything is wrapped up in unseemly haste.
Maybe Rohan Sippy will deliver a more well-rounded second season. And if nothing else, we can count on Konkona to once again stand tall and deliver her side of the story with conviction.
