‘Brinda’ web series review: Trisha, Ravindra Vijay sparkle in this brooding, taut crime drama

Trisha within the Telugu internet collection ‘Brinda’, streaming on Sony LIV

First-time director Surya Manoj Vangala’s Telugu internet collection Brinda, which marks actor Trisha Krishnan’s entry into the digital area, options the actor with out a lot of the trappings of mainstream industrial cinema. Forged within the titular position, she portrays a brooding insomniac cop popping anxiousness drugs, grappling with ghosts from her previous, going through gender discrimination on the office with quiet resilience and dealing with an unflinching sense of goal. Within the eight-episode collection streaming on Sony LIV, roughly 40 minutes period every, she smiles fleetingly on a few events. The narrative offers her and her co-star Ravindra Vijay, a colleague on the police station, ample scope to painting troubled characters, even because the crime they’re investigating will get darker at each flip. Brinda tries to transcend the whodunnit hook factors. It blends the non-public {and professional} journeys of its principal characters, whereas additionally attempting to debate a tough socio-cultural subject.

The prologue within the opening episode establishes the premise. In a distant village within the forest, within the mid-Nineties, a younger woman is chosen to be supplied as a human sacrifice to appease the supposedly indignant Goddess. The wails of the woman’s brother and mom fall on deaf ears; nobody within the village questions the superstitious, ritualistic follow. The collection is peppered with practices that proceed to happen in modern society, throughout religions, within the identify of God.

Surya Vangala makes use of cinematic liberty to discover what’s prone to occur to people who bear the brunt of such practices. Somebody raised in a sheltered, doting household surroundings, could, with some wrestle, keep on the appropriate facet of the ethical compass. Left on the fringes and ignored by society, some others would possibly channel their power into the darker zones. The retaliation to practices within the identify of religion varieties the backdrop of Brinda.

The protagonist struggles to beat recollections of the previous and is continually trying to find solutions. Brinda (Trisha), a newly appointed sub-inspector, is usually relegated to a desk job. She retains to herself, unmindful of the informal disdain with which her colleagues method work. We see her generally fixing an electrical energy subject and infrequently having to shut the washroom door that her colleagues go away ajar. Small, on a regular basis happenings are used to determine her persona. When an auto driver hesitates to take cash after dropping her off on the police station, she insists on paying him. 

The facility and gender politics at work play out in several methods, with solely Sarathi (Ravindra Vijay), a fellow cop, treating her with some respect. Sarathi and Brinda forge an unlikely partnership, with some friction, as they start to research what appears to be at first, a case of suicide. The small print get grotesque as they unfold and viewer discretion can be suggested within the case of younger youngsters.

The tales of Brinda and Sarathi are successfully woven in after we get a glimpse of their households. Aamani performs Brinda’s doting foster mom, struggling to steadiness the animosity between Brinda and her youthful daughter. The sibling friction has a predictable arc and will have been labored upon higher in a narrative that in any other case tries to keep away from predictable tropes. As an illustration, the prologues of the primary few episodes make it appear straightforward to attach the dots and guess who might be pitted in opposition to whom. However occasions and characters revealed later add a layer of complexity to the net of crime.

At one level, when Brinda tells her mom that she is grateful that she has been nurtured in a caring residence and wonders what the mindset of somebody who has not obtained that heat is, she factors to characters on the opposite facet of the coin. 

Brinda tries to handle the great versus evil debate via the characters performed by Jaya Prakash, Rakendu Mouli and Sandeep Sahu, portray a grim image that training alone will not be sufficient for folks to rise above superstitious practices. It additionally exhibits how one other educated character is blinded by hatred in direction of such practices. To a sure extent, the narrative manages to underline the necessity for a wise method and let goodness prevail over every kind of evil. 

The non-public tales of some characters humanise the crime drama. Sarathi’s story is that of somebody desperately ready for higher tidings on the non-public {and professional} fronts. Ravindra Vijay places forth a high quality efficiency as a police officer who aspires for the next place however doesn’t shed his innate sense of equity in direction of a colleague. A scene that exhibits him breaking down on studying an important turning level in his private life is a delicate, reasonable portrayal by way of writing and efficiency. A straightforward, cinematic portrayal might have proven him and his spouse Lekha (Anjana) exulting. However the actuality is prone to be totally different. His tears are an indication of gratitude, aid and hope for higher issues to return. Anjana because the spouse, in her temporary display time, is hanging.

Brinda banks on its writing and the power of its lead actor, Trisha (with voice by Harita), to breathe life into the non-glamorous half and carry it with all her resolve. Trisha’s is a measured portrayal of a resilient lady attempting to rise above her circumstances. Trisha makes it depend and by no means strikes a false observe.

Giving Brinda its grittiness can also be an in a position technical staff that features cinematographer Dinesh Babu, music composer Shakti Kanth Karthick and manufacturing designer Avinash Kolla, who’re in sync with the proceedings. Anand Sami as Thakur is pitch-perfect, as is Indrajith Sukumaran because the suave Kabir Anand who provides intrigue to the drama. To debate their characters would quantity to revealing spoilers.

Regardless of just a few predictable stretches, Brinda is a formidable addition to the Telugu internet collection area.

Brinda is at the moment streaming on Sony LIV