The two biggest pitfalls of Indian serials are the length and writing. I remember a film editor who once told me that directors were just not open to their movies being edited. The result: too many scenes that sucked and were clumsily long. This is where foreign serials score – with their pointed scripting and intelligent editing. They are, thus, engaging, and grips you with their imagination and narrative style.
Tribhuvan Mishra: CA Topper, Netflix’s latest foray into the world of serials, has neither a novel idea to throw up nor a great piece of narration, which goes all over. Each of the nine episodes, almost an hour long, is bundled with silly jokes and characters who are just unbelievable.
I cannot for the world of me understand how banks can pull their shutters down in this day and age. They are all under the Reserve Bank of India umbrella, and none of them can collapse as Tribhuvan Mishra’s (Manav Kaul) does. Overnight, he finds himself penniless, with a wife, Ashoklata (Naina Sareen) and two adorable kids.
So, what does he do? Gets busy with his desktop computer and gets into the sex work ring. Mishra is a good looking hunk (but with a wooden face that breaks into a smile once in a blue moon), and soon he is in great demand with women swooning over him. He makes good money (paying his monthly instalments for a flat), and even considers insuring his fingers. They have magic in them, his women tell him – particularly Bindi (Tillotama Shome, who is also so wooden).
The canvas has several other characters – Bindi’s husband, Raja (Shubrajyoti Barat, who has a sweetmeat shop, but he is also a killer) and a couple of cops. The paths of all these people cross at different points to lead us to a very disappointing climax, but not before some embarrassing moments. Mishra’s confrontation with his brother-in-law and his wife at one of his escapades is meant to be funny, but turns out to be quite the opposite.
The biggest plot goof-up arrives in the form of Mishra’s ways of escape from law enforcers. Hello, how does he manage to do that! Through very poor writing.
Finally, I was wondering why the Chartered Accountants tribe is not shouting at the top of their voices at this kind of reputation and image portrayed by the series, co-directed by Krishna with Amrit Raj Gupta.
The writer is a senior film critic