Courtroom dramas have always been popular as fast-paced thrillers that captivate audiences and keep them on edge with suspenseful narratives. So much so that over time, this has come to be considered as an essential factor to qualify as a courtroom drama. It has been one of the most frequently explored genres in films, a few TV shows, and even OTT. In the short span since OTTs’ proliferation among Indian audiences, there have been numerous legal dramas on almost every platform. Undeniably, in each of them, it is the trial that gets viewers invested, but predominantly, it is the crime involved that distinguishes a particular project amongst a plethora of works of the same genre. Many legal dramas have been based, if not entirely adapted, on real life incidents, and more often than not they also perform an important task of creating awareness about a particular case, law, or crime among people, and try to educate society on certain issues.
There is quite a long list of films and shows that have performed this function and this is exactly what seems to be the objective of Hotstar Specials Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors. It is a reworking of season 2 of the British TV series Criminal Justice (2008-9), and was released on 24th December 2020 on Hotstar, and is the subsequent season of Hotstar’s Criminal Justice (2019). The case in Behind Closed Doors revolves around Anuradha Chandra, essayed by Kirti Kulkarni, who is on trial for her husband’s murder. Actors Mita Vashist, Anupriya Goenka, and Pankaj Tripathi, reprise their characters from the first season; Mandira Mathur, Nikhat Hussain, and Madhav Mishra respectively. It is Mishra who fights Anu’s case, and is later joined by Hussain.
As the name of the season suggests, the prime focus here is a crime that happens ‘behind closed doors’, within the confines of one’s home. It is quite natural for most people to think of domestic violence in this regard, because Indians as a society are more familiar with wife-beating, torture by in-laws etc. as a consequence of experience or pop culture representations. An article in The Indian Express states that India is one of the few countries around the world, one out of just 36 countries to be precise, where marital rape is not a crime by law. It is this issue that the show tries to highlight and initiate conversations on. As cinema has done in the past, hopefully, this too will bring about some reform.
Almost every individual has two faces, not that they lead double lives, but just that the way someone behaves or acts in public may not necessarily coincide with them in private. This is established well in the very first episode. Bikram Chandra (Jisshu Sengupta), a successful lawyer, doting husband and parent to the outside world, is actually an insecure, uber manipulative, and stealthily controlling husband to his wife. Anu is quite the yin to his yang; soft-spoken, impressionable, and even naïve to some extent. Situating the crime in an educated, wealthy, upper class household, seems to be a good effort at debunking stereotypes. Bikram is far removed from poor, unemployed or illiterate men, who are often typecast as abusers and rapists.
The show has three couples; the Chandras, Mishra and his wife, Ratna (Khushboo Atre), and the police duo, Gauri (Kalyanee Mulay) and Harsh Pradhan (Ajeet Singh Palawat), all seemingly distinct yet so similar in the way the women in the marriages are treated. This portrayal attests to the fact that patriarchy permeates every section of society, regardless of class, caste, educational background, or religion. Having said that, it is hard to miss that Mishra and Ratna’s relationship is rather peculiar. He certainly is funny, but together they pleasingly punctuate the show with humour. Specifically, Ratna’s character steers clear of the ‘ignorant small town girl’ trope and offers a nice amalgam of tradition and progressiveness. Her portrayal is essential to rightly capture the more nuanced form of oppression (negligence and taking for granted in this case). There is a frail attempt at redeeming Mishra in this respect through a face saving act at the very last moment.
From early on in the show, viewers see how Anu’s 12-year-old daughter, Rhea (Adrija Sinha), is used as a bait not only by the police; Harsh Pradhan particularly, to force a confession out of her, but also by her lawyers to push her to reveal the truth behind her actions. The intermediary scenes showcasing life within prison could have used a little more fleshed out and less stock figures. Above all of this, perhaps more than Anu’s journey over the course of the show, is her meltdown in the last episode, where she finally discloses what her husband used to do to her. The scene is of high significance, as it explicates how the notion of shame comes into play and restrains women from reporting against sexual violence; more so when it is spousal, consequently many perpetrators are never held accountable let alone punished.
The show is not always fast-paced, but tolerably so, and occasionally tends to slip into the typical courtroom drama style of cross questioning during the trial, resorting to repetition and rhetoric. Nevertheless, it deserves appreciation for batting for a tabooed topic.
(cover image courtesy: hotstar)
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