I watched Human (2022) in orig. Hindi-Eng. W/Eng. Subs on Disney+Hotstar, with great expectations after going through some glowing critic reviews!
Truth be told, the narrative is overly convoluted, the all pervading aura of this series is the darkest shade of Noir, and Super Grim. A tad too grim for my liking though the episodes held my interest, give or take a few bouts of fast forwarding.
Every character is psychotic to some extent or the other, the story would have one believe this is due to their respective traumatic past. Dr Gouri Nath (Shefali Shah), an acclaimed neurologist and ambitious Chairman of Manthan Hospital, is spookily weird. Gouri in her formative years was routinely molested and demeaned by the highly respected head of the Nath household. Shefali enacts Gouri's role superbly in several frames but soap operatically in many others. Roma Ma (Seema Biswas) helps her through her traumatic times with psychotropic drugs, and assists Gouri in her questionable Drug Trials for big pharma companies. Gouri brings Dr Saira Sabherwal(Kirti Kulhari) a promising cardiac surgeon to Manthan and convinces her to approve the Phase trials for a new drug with dubious antecedents. Saira has her own personal demons to deal with. She is a closet lesbian in a heterosexual marriage to Neel (Indraneil Sengupta). Saira is in a relationship with a former lover Shalini, and then with Gouri who stops at nothing in her effort to manipulate people for her goals. Kirti Kulhari like Shefali Shah, is effective in parts but annoyingly stilted in several other scenes.
Mangu (Vishal Jethwa) a young man who works in a mortuary as a post mortem "body cutter" seeks a better life for his family. He gets enticed into the Drug Trials racket, getting commissions on every volunteer he brings in. His mother also gets a Trial dose, but suffers serious side effects and eventually dies. An NGO activist steps in and the murky world of Drug Trial scams is slowly revealed in every convoluted turn of the tale. Vishal Jethwa and his father (Sushil Pandey) are the most convincing characters of the series and have done an outstanding enactment of their roles.
Watch to see how this twisted narration of mind games, big business, political nexus and suspense plays out.
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