Breathe: in the shadows Review: Abhishek Bachchan on a poster (courtesy breathalyzer)
Performers: Abhishek Bachchan, Nithya Menen, Amit Sadh, Saiyami Kher, Hrishikesh Joshi, Shradha Kaul, Shruti Bapna, Resham Shrivardhankar
Director: Mayank Sharma
Rating: 1.5 stars (out of 5)
Several episodes in Breathe: in the shadows, an Amazon Original, the guilty male protagonist, a psychiatrist from New Delhi who commits heinous acts under duress, wonders what his wife will see when the test is over and normalcy is restored in their lives. She replies: “A man who did everything he could to save his family”. Whoa!
We too have a question. What do we do with a psychological marathon thriller (which lasts nine hours) that died from top to bottom? Breathe: in the shadows, with Abhishek Bachchan as Dr Avinash Sabharwal whose six-year-old daughter is kidnapped and Nithya Menen (in her first foray into digital space) as his wife, Abha, has little room to breathe logic .
Brutal murders shake the city. The psychiatrist and his spouse, a five-star hotel manager, have obscure secrets that the public has known from the start. But the Delhi police crime branch is looking for answers as intra-departmental politics weigh on investigations. Lots of mythology and psycho-babbling are thrown into the mix for good measure. This is Breathe: in the shadows for you. Total hold.
The show brings together a bunch of silly ideas together to create a jumble of killings and spills that doesn’t produce any real thrills. The bizarre thread wildly oscillates from the dotted to the absurdly pure brain, adding to a web series of 12 episodes that will take your breath away with its chain of absolute irrationalities.
Anything revealed on the show beyond the basic plot would constitute a spoiler. This review will therefore be limited only to broader narrative elements (for what they are worth) although the temptation to throw light on the holes the size of a crater whose history is strewn is immense.
Breathe: in the shadows, screened as season 1 of a new series rather than a follow-up to R. Madhavan-starrer from 2018 Breathe, in which a Mumbai-based football coach does everything he can to save his son, is chaired by the same director, Mayank Sharma. The central premise here is just as morally dubious as that of the previous outing – it justifies premeditated murder as a sign of parental responsibility. But this time, total stupidity slips into the concoction, increasing the repulsion.
Breathe: in the shadows Review: Abhishek Bachchan in a still
One would have to be extremely generous or extraordinarily gullible to let the risky rationalizations imposed on the public pass without a cry of disbelief, if not disdain. This favorite whipped boy of all our sagas filmed from good to evil, Ravana, is inevitably invoked. The kidnapper, instead of asking for ransom after chasing Siya Sabharwal (Ivana Kaur) with an older daughter (Resham Shrivardhankar), twists the arms of the parents to support a strange plan.
The Sabharwal couple are engaged to free the world from the weaknesses that the ten heads of Ravana mean – kroadh (anger), vaasna (lust), bhay (fear) and so on. If it doesn’t seem ridiculous, nothing will ever be.
The shrink, a man whom the Delhi police often turn to for help in the face of particularly twisted sociopaths, hears his wife utter the expression “mind games”. He throws himself on it. He says, “I’m a psychiatrist. Who can play better mind games than me?” But when he jumps into the arena, the man is not pretty to see.
The capricious writing does not allow him to be one. “Everything has become so blurry,” Avinash explains to his wife at one point. If he had been a better psychiatrist, he would have known that it hadn’t become a blur, it was still a blur. In a performance of this nature, it is unfair to blame the actors for being tied up. It is hilarious to hear Avinash and Abha discuss the sexual orientation of a woman whom they must kill to ensure the survival of their daughter.
Breathe: in the shadows Review: Nithya Menen on a poster
Because the action went from Mumbai to Delhi, only two of the characters from 2018 Breathe – Inspector Kabir Sawant (Amit Sadh) and sub-inspector Prakash Kamble (Hrishikesh Joshi) – are back. The duo are conveniently transferred to the national capital after emotionally nervous Kabir has served a six-month prison sentence for injuring Meghna (Plabita Borthakur) in an attempt to harass a notorious extortionist.
Meghna, a recovering addict, is in a wheelchair but has no regrets in life. She now shares her positive experiences in a detoxification program where Kabir finds her after his arrival in Delhi. The policeman’s life continues to be difficult – he still has not gotten over the death of his daughter – in particular due to the increasing pressures at work as the Ravana murders plunge the media into a tizzy state.
The kidnapper (who is played at different stages of his life by Dwij Vala, Varin Roopani and Ravish Dumra) also has a past. It is much more tortuous than anything that the Kabir incubator or the evil Meghna has survived. Indeed, the criminal’s psychosis is rooted in a traumatic childhood – and a lullaby that he simply cannot get out of his head. Its targets, if not entirely blameless, are not people who deserve the torment that is reserved for them.
Breathe: in the shadows Review: Amit Sadh on a poster
Breathe: in the shadows is sometimes animated by actors who give character to the story. Among them, Saiyami Kher as a prostitute who saves money for the admission of his younger brother to an American art school, Shradha Kaul as an ambitious police officer, Shruti Bapna as an artist and gay writer, Shataf Figar as a psychoanalyst and Resham Shrivardhankar as a psychoanalyst. the medical student who is kidnapped in the first moments of the series. None of them has the opportunity to leave their mark on a show that is struggling to get out of its quagmire.
If there are moments lost in Breathe: in the shadows which can be considered fair, much of the credit should go to Amit Sadh. Abhishek Bachchan and Nithya Menen are consistent in emotional passages, but this is not necessarily a good thing. Consistency keeps desperation and distress from harassed parents from passing. The couple are said to be in a race against the clock to save their daughter, but the script is unable to create the tension and the sense of urgency that would make us believe that the storm raging in them is worth it. to be invested.
Breathe: in the shadows is low in oxygen. It does not disappear in the shadows but in a one-sided abyss.
