Guilty is one of the new Netflix line ups for this year. And to a certain extent this is the most "well-made" of all of them.
The premise is intriguing and the way the story is laid out (at least initially), seemed to be really exciting. But the film somewhere lacks few things which (if there) could have made it into a masterpiece. It had all the great ingredients but somehow the execution falters.
Having said that, Advani's performance is a breath of fresh air. And the senior casts also shine. On top of that, few of the newcomers have actually done more than just being the "pretty new faces".
Moving back to the problems of this film (and boy there are many). First of all (on a lighter note) the number of times the word "MeToo" has been uttered in the film is actually kind of, little bit annoying (apologies in advance). I mean I get it, you are making a film and want to address the movement but I am sure there are more proper ways of doing it than just literally addressing the word in every third dialogue. Plus the story is so incoherent.
I mean the film starts off by showing this lawyer (cum-Sherlock) investigating the truth and yet by the time film reaches second half does nothing actually to discover anything, apart from listening tapes and looking at Kiara. Even Kiara's character which is crafted as a nuanced, conflicted character but in the end comes across as one quintessential "Abla" Bollywood heroine. (To be fair, I didn't saw that coming at all). This film wants to be so many things, that after a point one would surely wonder which way the film is gonna go (which could be a good thing).
This film is not certainly bad. But the second half could have been more impactful. I get it, its a Bollywood film and the only way to make the message come across to the audience is by adding plenty of drama and insane amount of glycerin maybe. But I guess this film could have added one more word apart from MeToo and that is subtlety. I wish the film approached this great concept with more delicacy and grace. It could have been a perfect film like Pink maybe or Netflix's Unbelievable, but in the end this film is just Guilty... of adapting to all the classic Bollywood cliches. (You see what I did there)
Go ahead and watch. You might love it though.
