{"id":7499,"date":"2016-04-06T19:44:54","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T14:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=7499"},"modified":"2016-04-06T19:44:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T14:14:54","slug":"bestseller-review-amazon-prime-video-shruti-hassan-mithun-chakraborty-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/?p=7499","title":{"rendered":"Bestseller review: Won&#8217;t sell anywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<span class=\"dropcap\">B<\/span>efore we talk about the new eight-ep Amazon web series- Bestseller, let me confess how good it is to see Mithun Chakraborty back. The 80s star hasn\u2019t lost his charm and doesn\u2019t miss a moment to shine on screen. They don\u2019t make them like him anymore. Unfortunately, you wish he got a better show to make his OTT debut with.\n\nThe on-screen adaptation of Ravi Subramaniam\u2019s 2015 novel The Bestseller she wrote, opens with superstar novelist Tahir Wazir facing writer&#8217;s block.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a whole decade since he wrote a book, and he\u2019s desperate for a new story. He meets aspiring writer and ardent fan young Meetu Mathur, who soon becomes a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 and confides her own tragic childhood tale to him. The author smells drama in her story and chooses to sell it as his own next novel. Predictably, things don\u2019t go his way as Meetu uncovers the sociopath in him who doesn\u2019t have one original thought to share with the world. Phew!\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p>From direction to cinematography to the music, there\u2019s nothing that salvages this one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nThe plot of the show is pretty humdrum from the word go, and you wonder why the creators chose to adapt a mediocre novel in the first place. Is there really such a dearth of original ideas, or are we so inept that we can\u2019t tell the difference between a good and bad story? If it\u2019s the drama that inspired them, they clearly needed more to do better. The screenplay by Anvita Dutt and Aletha Koshal is lifeless and predictable. The writing is lazy and it has zero surprise value for a revenge drama. The story makes a bold attempt to reveal the culprits early on, but is barely able to carry the weight of its own revelations. \n\nThe world of the show that swindles between superficial city ambitions and honest small-down dreams, is one we have seen too often. There\u2019s glitzy Mumbai on one hand, and jaded Uttarakhand on the other, and the characters emerge from these contrasting worlds. Their world views are different, and so are their values, and a good portrayal of a clash between the two could have saved the so-so storyline. But the characters aren\u2019t etched out well enough and so we are never invested in them. Wazir (Arjan Bajwa), Meetu (Shruti Hassan), Parth (Satyajeet Dubey) and Mayaanka (Gauhar Khan) often fall in and out of their own motivations, and generate little curiosity for us to root for at least one of them.\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p>The plot of the show is pretty humdrum from the word go, and you wonder why the creators chose to adapt a mediocre novel in the first place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nDirector Mukul Abhayankar\u2019s treatment and vision for the show makes it resemble a gaudy Bollywood film from the 90s, with cheap plotting and wannabe protagonists. The show dares to open with couplets by saint Kabir and even though I want to applaud the writers\u2019 intentions, I see it as a terrible tribute to the stalwart. Bestseller is also a brother-sister story that tries to pose as an intriguing thriller about human ambitions and betrayals, but falters at every go. The dialogues are amateur and there\u2019s little foreshadowing of plot turns, a classic symptom of a half-baked script. The climax is so convenient and spoon-fed, that as a viewer you\u2019re thoroughly disappointed. It\u2019s four whole hours of your life that you\u2019re never getting back, and that\u2019s tragic.\n\nTarantino once said to aspiring filmmakers- \u201cThe minute you think your audience is stupid, you\u2019ve lost the story.\u201d Bestseller lost me a few minutes into its opening episode. The approach to the show is ignorant and a tad bit arrogant, to say the least. At one point the protagonist carries a carcass of a woman around for days together and places it in the front seat of a car to plot her own death. Even forensics fails to identify this, and by this time you\u2019re just looking for your remote to fast forward.\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p>Director Mukul Abhayankar\u2019s treatment and vision for the show makes it resemble a gaudy Bollywood film from the 90s<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nFrom direction to cinematography to the music, there\u2019s nothing that salvages this one. I\u2019m not even getting into the gaping continuity errors in multiple episodes. At one point I wondered if the show makers had a favor to repay or too much money to throw about to create something so forgettable. Among the actors Arjan Bajwa proves yet again why he\u2019s so underused. He comes across as a novice, immature performer often fumbling and confused in his body and mind. Satyajeet Dubey is sincere, but he must have overlooked some serious character loopholes. Gauhar Khan deserves better, and I wonder when she\u2019ll find a part worthy of her talent. Lastly, Shruti Hassan just isn\u2019t an actor strong enough to headline a show. To play someone with that much duality and hidden motives, needs more nuance than she has displayed in all of her acting career. She hams through the first half, and transforms too quickly and unconvincingly in the second. She\u2019s lovely to look at on-screen, but sadly it takes more than looks to hold a story. She should stick to roles that allow her to play herself, a musician. She aces those!\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p>Despite what it suggests, I seriously hope there isn\u2019t a sequel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nThe only saving breath in Bestseller is Mithun Chakraborty who plays a cop obsessed with food and finding the truth. He holds your attention and superbly matches his comic timing to some pretty serious situations in the story. He\u2019s so stylish in his body language and dialogue delivery that he saves the scene more often than not. He reminds you that there are a handful of actors from his era who deserve more work, simply because of their ability to carry a story on their shoulders.\n\nDuring a conversation with Tahir Wazir, Shruti\u2019s character Meetu once says, \u201cHar kahani ka end accha hota hai.\u201d\u00a0Sadly, the ending was neither\u00a0accha\u00a0(good) nor\u00a0saccha\u00a0(true), and despite what it suggests, I seriously hope there isn\u2019t a sequel.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new Amazon prime original is dull, unimaginative and worst of all takes its viewers for granted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[7989,11368,11580,3738,11494,893,11581,6371,11582,71],"class_list":["post-7499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-amazon-prime-video","tag-bestseller","tag-bestseller-review","tag-drama","tag-gauahar-khan","tag-indian-tv","tag-mithun-chakr","tag-prime-video","tag-shruti-hassan","tag-web-series"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bestseller review: Won&#039;t sell anywhere<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The new Amazon prime original is dull, unimaginative and worst of all takes its viewers for granted.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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