SHE - Bold and novel premise noir thriller but flickers out in the end !

ASHOK’s FIVE reasons to watch Imtiaz Ali’s “SHE” now streaming on Netflix. The first episode sets up a brilliant and novel premise and makes you sit up and take notice but the remaining six episodes meander into mediocrity, leaving you disappointed. Directed by Arif Ali and Avinash Das, SHE does a great job of introducing the idea of an undercover cop using herself as a honeytrap, but the deeper she goes undercover, greater is the need for her to take ownership of her own body and feel that she can use it as a weapon.

1.       SHE is a ‘good looking’ show. Brilliant cinematography by Amit Roy ensures a noir like feel to the show with stylised visuals, high contrasted lighting that plays up the grey of the characters and a fantasy like feel.

2.       Watch SHE for Vijay Varma. He is simply brilliant in his role as Sasya the gangster who is arrested in the first episode itself but then goes on to play mind games with the cops. His Hyderabadi accent is a nice touch as well. Vijay brings in charisma, menace and a lascivious touch to the character.

3.       Aaditi Pohankar dazzles in her role as Bhumi, the cop from a chawl in Mumbai who has been picked to play the undercover agent.

4.       It is difficult to fathom what went wrong in the writing especially after the brilliant feel to the first episode. The series could have gone either the way of Ali’s earlier work where he explores a semi Stockholm syndrome in Highway or could well have explored women’s emancipation via Bhumi’s character in a manner never done before.

5.       SHE keeps you on the edge throughout waiting for the mystery to unravel but by the time the lead gangster Nayak is unveiled, the screenplay, dialogues and the character sketches wear out so thin, you could end up tearing out your hair.

SHE is a bold experiment gone wrong. It has its moments of brilliance and I am 50:50 on voting to see or ignore but if you are a fan of Noir crime thrillers then sit through it. However as the director of Mindhunter David Finch says “ there are two ways to film a scene ; one is probably wrong”!