Mithya review: Huma Qureshi, Avantika Dassani craft a suspenseful thriller

Language: Hindi A college campus in Darjeeling becomes the setting for a dark story laced with secrets and lies. It revolves around a Hindi professor and scholar called Juhi (Huma Qureshi). When Juhi fails a student for plagiarism and brands her a cheat, Rhea Rajguru ( Avantika Dassan i) – the entitled daughter of a college trustee – embarks on a path of vengeance and violence. Juhi, the daughter of an erstwhile English professor, has a massive chip on her shoulder about merit over legacy. She holds Rhea up to the same standard believing failing the student will school her on integrity. But Rhea is used to taking shortcuts, using her feminine guile and the distressed damsel tricks to get what she wants. Juhi is a novelist in the making, a professor on the brink of a promotion and a wife with a shaky marital relationship. Juhi may be clever, but she’s not very smart. Rhea has the power and she also does not have ethics holding her back. She’s manipulative and all the men she targets easily fall for her tricks. She’s a smart aleck who has Juhi in the crosshairs.

The teacher and student are now pitted against one another in a psychological thriller in which two women try to outwit each other. But only one of them has a lot to lose.

Directed by Rohan Sippy, Mithya (Zee5), an adaptation of the British show Cheat (2019), tackles issues of integrity, infidelity, identity and questions whether two wrongs make a right. The earlier episodes of the six-part series are bookended by an opening scene of two talking heads in black and white, ending with a murder investigation. The show begins at the story’s end and then goes back in time to show us what events brought these two women to jail. This is a very affecting technique. In the cat and mouse game, a power play between the older ambivalent woman and the younger obsessive and unafraid one, there will be unwitting victims and some weak-willed characters who are all-too-easily engineered. One of them falls quickly for the student’s whimpering act and textbook compliments and another’s actions remain unexplained and un-investigated. A compact cast and plot keep the drama focussed, steered by Qureshi, Dassani and Parmabrata Chatterjee as Juhi’s husband Neil. In these ‘woke’ times, Dassani captures Gen Z’s confidence and impulse. As she strides down a corridor, she conveys a range of emotions from shock to disappointment to pain to rage. However, in the highly emotional spoken scenes, her cadence lacks enough variation. It’s not easy to feel sympathy for Rhea. Chatterjee is on-point as the feckless husband. As Juhi’s parents Rajit Kapur and Avantika Akerkar bring in a solid layer and dimension to the drama. Qureshi has the toughest job. She’s torn between principles and emotions and starts unravelling when the distinction between truths and lies blurs. In one scene, the characters use the analogy of the skill required to drive on the winding roads of the hill region to marriage. Like those roads, the story of Juhi and Rhea is twisted, with danger at every corner. The crafting of this suspenseful thriller holds attention and the structure, and along with the execution, intrigue and drama keeps you interested. Mithya, produced by Applause Entertainment, is streaming on ZEE5. Udita Jhunjhunwala is a writer, film critic, and festival programmer.