Accused review: good concept backed by fab acting but Afsos

Accused review: good concept backed by fab acting but Afsos

‘Accused’ – Netflix and Dharma come together this time with a psychological drama thriller directed by Anubhuti Kashyap featuring a lesbian protagonist played by Konkona Sen Sharma.

There is a sex predator (alleged), but this time for a change its a female - Dr. Geetika Sen (Konkona Sen Sharma), a celebrated and respected surgeon and gynecologist living with her life partner Dr. Meera (Pratibha Rannta).

The world of Geetika and Meera starts falling apart when an anonymous mail alleging sexual misconduct is send to the hospital HR where Geetika is working and is about to take charge as the Dean.

The incident which unfortunately goes viral on social media exposes the inner unknown sides of Geetika and Meera, from what it seems to be a ‘perfect’ happy life of Geetika and Meera gets upset in the atmosphere of tension and emotional restraint.

Is Geetika really guilty, who has made this serious allegation, what happens to the love, trust and faith of Geetika and Meera.

 

The movie tries to answer the above questions.

Accused movie review

Director Anubhuti Kashyap certainly has the knack of bringing different/unique concepts to Indian/Hindi movie storytelling. Remember the series “Afsos’ starring Gulshan Devaiah which revolved around a suicidal man, a trigger-happy assassin, a murderer sadhu, and an English scientist in search of the elixir of immortality.

‘Accused’ is also unique in its concept but ‘Afsos’ (sad, sorry to say) Anubhuti fails in giving proper justice to the characters and theme as well. The winding up of ‘Afsos’ lacked the finesse and in ‘Acussed’ also after all the merry go round of trust, guilt, love, acceptance, empowerment, the winding up is superficial.

It’s not that ‘Accused’ is a badly made film, it has its shining moments and the glory lies in Anubhuti’s decision to narrate the story minus sensationalism, unwanted romanticism, sudden adrenaline rush and heroism.

Focusing on the inner turmoil, the mindset and the mind games, ‘Accused’ almost becomes an emotionally touchy slow burn thriller only to get spoiled in the last fifteen minutes.

As a result, ‘Accused’ which had the potential to be a uniquely striking psychological thriller that underlines the power of empowerment, in true sense ends up as nicely shot and fabulously acted above average thriller.

Konkana Sen Sharma as doctor Dr. Geetika Sen is excellent while Pratibha Rannta as Dr. Meera shines bright but we don’t know what connects them together and that is a major drawback. Plus, the unfolding of the mystery behind those anonymous mail is predictable.

 

---

---