Daldal Review: Strong Execution, Stale Plot

BOTTOM LINE
Strong Execution, Stale Plot

PLATFORM
Amazon Prime Video

RUNTIME
240 Mins (7 episodes)

What Is the Show About?
In Mumbai, newly promoted DCP Rita Ferreira battles a patriarchal workforce and addiction while investigating a series of murders. As the victim count rises, she clashes with her colleagues over conflicting theories. When her addiction is exposed and Rita’s career teeters on the brink, she must go past internal politics and finally confront a haunting, long-buried memory from her past.

Performances
The fact that Bhumi Pednekar has to play an inexpressive character with internalised trauma is a limitation in itself in terms of the performance. While the portrayal is sincere, it comes across as a one-note act which needed more externalisation through body language or gestures. That is a similar problem with Samara Tijori too; it feels she is in autopilot mode and the role, despite the flashback and justification, is devoid of nuance.

Impressive performances come from Aditya Rawal and Geeta Agrawal, playing people who are tied to the destinies of the protagonist and the antagonist. If Aditya brings out the ambiguity within the character and his inability to explain his rage or actions, Geeta works as a symbol of warmth, like a blanket of sisterhood that protects the cop at all costs. Chinmay Mandlekar is decent as Rita’s insecure colleague Vikram, someone that everyone loves to hate.

Analysis
Daldal, created by Suresh Triveni and directed by Amrit Raj Gupta, plays with a fairly functional premise for a female-led police procedural drama: a grumpy cop, stuck in a misogynistic workplace, trying to nab a serial killer on the loose with a specific killing pattern. It is far from a whodunit and functions more as a whydunit, using its story as a familiar front to delve deeper into its characters.

Rita is a blunt officer who just does not know how to take a chill pill. At home, she is too hard on her partner, Aditya, a doctor. Despite being promoted to DCP, she views it as a PR tactic to be in the good books of the media without being sufficiently challenged in her assignments. In Vikram, she has a disgruntled, insecure colleague who cannot stomach her progress.

Compassion flows in from Indu Mhatre, a middle-aged officer who works under Rita. When a series of murders sends shock waves across Mumbai, Rita is tested to the hilt. Interestingly, both she and the antagonists are bound by a similar link: a loveless, dysfunctional childhood and the paths they choose to heal from the trauma. How does she piece the puzzle together?

The show creators are not really interested in the broad strokes; it is anyone’s guess as to how the story would flow and meet its end. However, the writing is enriched by little, intimate details that explain the characters’ behavioural patterns and choices, not merely by logic but also from a place of empathy. It expands on its theme hauntingly through a maze of rich characters.

All the key figures, Rita, Sajid, and Anant, are in the hunt for emotional security at home. Someone to tell them “it is all okay” at the end of a day, give them a warm embrace, and prepare them for a hopeful tomorrow. The life of Rita’s subordinate, Indu Mhatre, is a reminder of what they have been missing all along. It is this void that fuels their unpredictable tempers and defines their fractured lives.

The emotional core, how the past haunts and defines the present, is handled exceedingly well. Trapped in a cycle of abuse without an escape route, their anger spills into their professional lives, where validation becomes their only ray of hope. There is little or no room to heal the wounds. Suresh Triveni and his team bring this to the fore with immense sensitivity and visual flair.

Yet, for all the compelling character study, Daldal surprisingly forgets that the cake is as integral as the icing. Despite the storytelling finesse, it oversimplifies genre tropes and ties threads together too conveniently. The setup is ultimately too basic. The grimness feels imposed upon Rita from all directions, and the behavioural patterns become simplistic once the mystery is exposed.

Even with the character exploration, you are relatively sure about where Rita, Sajid, and Anant come from, even with the occasional glimpses. Yet the makers indulge and go overboard with the detailing. They want you to know how the past permeates into their lives day in and day out, sometimes to the point of boredom. That is the thing with long-form storytelling: it forgets to hit a pause.

Daldal starts slow and disappoints with its oversimplified plot. Before you write it off for its familiar beats, the character study and the strong emotional core draw you in. However, the effort put into establishing the characters simply does not match the basic setup. Its critique of the system and workplace sexism lacks depth, and the four-hour runtime exhausts you, despite its silver linings.

Music and Other Departments?
The technical contributions are first rate. The music by Vishal Saroye provides adequate space for the show to marinate, hold its own, and build the tension. The muted colour palette is an expected creative choice. Though Rakesh Haridas’s frames do not break norms, they are apt for the world the series is set in. In terms of the storytelling and editing, redundancy creeps into the character explorations, unpacking every trivial detail until it exhausts you.

Highlights?

Decent performances

Intense character-study, detailing

Technical finesse

Drawbacks?

Stale, predictable premise

Goes overboard with character exploration

Lacks novelty, relies too much on existing genre tropes

Did I Enjoy It?

In parts

Will You Recommend It?

If you have a taste for cop dramas, go for it, but have some patience for the show to bloom

Daldal OTT Series Review

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