For the last two years, Boman Irani has done very little acting work in films. This year only two or three of his films were released – 83 (Farokh Engineer), Jayesh Bhai Jordar (Prithvish), Runway 34 (Nishant Suri). The reason for this must have been the lack of good roles. Now Boman Irani has knocked on the OTT platform with the recently released web series “Masoom”. Boman, who started his acting career at the age of 44, will once again surprise everyone with his acting in his 63rd year, this is the promise of this web series. In this web series set in the background of Punjab, Boman has become a doctor, whose mutual relations between family members become the reason for the tension of every episode. Innocent is like a very bitter medicine, so consider this psychological series carefully. Its story moves slowly and the visual structure is heavy on the mind.
Sophie Petzel wrote a series for UK Channel 5 in 2018 – Blood. The Indian adaptation of this series is the web series Masoom produced by Reliance Entertainment and Namit Sharma. The director of this web series is Mihir Desai, whose web series Mirzapur has made a different identity in the field of OTT. Television writer Satyam Tripathi (Shaurya and Anokhi Kahani, Hitler Didi, Ek Muthi Aasman) has given the spirit of Punjabiyat to this web series. Songwriter Ginni Dewan, who worked with Mihir Desai in Mirzapur, has composed some very beautiful songs and poems in Masoom. Rising music composer Anand Bhaskar has sung these songs but the background music that Anand composed for Masoom is just a small introduction to his brilliant talent. Vivek Shah, cinematographer of Inside Edge and Love Hostel, has captured the Punjab that is beyond the world of mustard fields, bhangra, lassi and drugs in his camera. Manan Mehta’s Kainchi, who worked with Mihir Desai in Mirzapur, has edited the innocence by threading it with a thread.
Doctor Balraj (Boman Irani)’s youngest daughter Nikki (Samara Tijori) returns to her village after her mother Gunavati (Upasana Singh), who has been bedridden for many years, dies under mysterious circumstances. Nikki’s doubts are on her father because such incidents keep happening one after the other, due to which her suspicion starts deepening. Nikki’s elder brother is gay and her elder sister is having a fight with her husband and also Dr Balraj is having an affair with a nurse. Because of this, Nikki keeps on doubting her father again and again. Reminiscing episode after episode and watching her father’s actions, Nikki tries to blame her father for her mother’s murder, but circumstances take such a turn that Boman confesses in front of her that her mother He had killed himself. The first season has ended with the scope of season 2.
Boman Irani is a stormy actor
Boman Irani is a stormy actor. His acting has taken many dimensions. On one hand he has become a doctor who is going through financial crisis, while he is a murderer in the eyes of his younger daughter, he is also preparing to contest a separate election, he also has a girlfriend. Boman is sometimes bitter, sometimes rough, sometimes dreadful and sometimes suspicious character and sometimes becomes wife-lover. Samara Tijori, daughter of famous actor and director Deepak Tijori, has also acted very well. Before this she was seen in Abhishek Bachchan starrer Bob Biswas. There are many shades in his character too. She has been labeled a liar by the family since childhood, so she keeps taking medicines. Samara never does injustice to her character. She is angry with her father since childhood and keeps expressing this displeasure in different ways.
Mother’s poem read in mother’s condolence meeting
In her mother’s condolence meeting, when she reads a poem written by her mother, she shakes the audience. Even in the emotional scenes of the last episode, her crying seems comfortable. It is strange to see Upasana Singh in a serious role for once but she has shown that she can do something different than just a comedy character. Apart from Manjari Phadnis, Veer Rajwant Singh, Manu Rishi Chadha in the role of Inspector has its own fun. It looks like he will play a very important role in the next season. In the very first scene, when Manu learns that Sana is the daughter of Dr Balraj and Gunwanti, their tone changes. Manu Rishi’s stature can play the role of a policeman who drops Sana home on his car from a strict inspector in an instant.
characteristic of the innocent
The specialty of Masoom is its story written by Sophie Petzel. Not a single scene looks strange and the need of every scene is proved, due to this the slow pace does not look bad either. Writer Satyam Tripathi basically writes TV serials, so many places are full of dialogues when the camera can narrate them without dialogues. The village of Phalauli in Punjab has also been beautifully screened and because of this it never seems to be an Indian adaptation of an Irish web series.
Tension prevails on the screen the whole time because every time it seems that Boman Irani’s secret is revealed now or then but the clouds of doubt do not rain till the end. Ginni Diwan’s poems are a reminder once again that the songs of Punjab Ki Mitti, besides names of brands like liquor, girls, goli bari, maar peet and saundhi khushboo hai relationship ki, heart touching expressions.
The most important thing in Indian adaptations of foreign web series or films is to seamlessly incorporate the soul of the original story into the body of the Indian environment. Innocent has been able to do this work well. Tension has been created due to the events happening on the screen, but after a while the audience starts getting irritated due to the suspense. Speed can become a big problem in this series as the audience cannot stick to the same story for so long and there is no co-story in Masoom. If you can ignore all this, then Masoom is a good web series, you can watch it. Although a lot of content has been released on different OTT platforms in the last two weeks, so maybe the second series of Disney + Hotstar has not got that success.