'P.I. Meena' web series review: Tanya Maniktala tries her best to lift the convoluted show but…

Cast: Tanya Maniktala, Parambrata Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, Vinay Pathak Director: Debaloy Bhattacharya Language: Hindi Mysterious deaths, mysterious murders, and a complex narrative; that’s what makers have in store for viewers while penning and giving whodunnits today. Amazon Prime Video IN has come up with a show called P.I Meena, PI stands for private investigator, and the character is played by Tanya Maniktala. She emotes sparely, and the show revels in its dark frames, both to justify the bruised demeanour of the protagonist and the supposed thrills the story has to offer. She’s investigating a case and as the series digs deeper, we are told there’s a mysterious fever looming large. Inserting COVID-19 into the narrative is clearly fascinating the landscape of content these days, with The Vaccine War and _Bloody Daddy_ most recently. The show is set against the backdrop of Kolkata, but the city never blends into the story like it did so effortlessly in Sujoy Ghosh’s 2012 Kahaani. Also, director Debaloy Bhattacharya is not content by making a pure, pulpy suspense thriller, he wants to delve deeper into the complexities of the genre, even at the cost of making the show convoluted. Jisshu Sengupta plays a secretive character and it would be a major spoiler to divulge his details here. Cryptic is the word that often pops up on social media when we indirectly hint at things that are supposed to be clandestine, and the actor’s role is exactly the same. He’s the one who asks Meena to seek something more when she’s trapped into a web of confusion with nowhere to go. The actor always had a brooding presence that only gets eerie this time around. Ditto for Parambrata, he’s fresh off playing a maniac, a monster in Mumbai Diaries Season Two but this time, the intentions and motivations of the character are a lot more restrained. He, being a Bengali, understands the nuances of the culture, as evident from Kahaani. Here, he’s no saint, but is no sinner either. He’s an integral part of the plot and adds a tinge of suspense and thrill with his dialogues. It will be interesting to see where heads with his choices in future. Maniktala has a lovely screen presence but as stated above, the genre itself is so obsessed with its shock value that it barely gives her an opportunity to open up. In a statement, while talking about her character, she said, “Meena is very different from what I have done in the past. Her determination to fight for what’s right, her emotional overdrive and the nuances of her persona are what convinced me to not miss the opportunity to play her.” She’s not entirely wrong. The character is a far departure from what we saw of her in A Suitable Boy, Flames, or even Tooth Pari. These were the shows where she smiled quite often, here, she’s sulking and mostly solemn. Even detectives and investigators can break into a smile, at least when they know they are taking the right direction to solve the mystery. Maybe next time. P.I. Meena is streaming on Amazon Prime Video

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