An adaptation of The Good Wife, Suparn Verma’s over-the-top (OTT) legal drama stars Kajol as Noyonika Sengupta, the homemaker who starts from scratch as a junior lawyer in a top-tier firm, after her famous husband Rajeev (a typecast Jisshu Sengupta) is imprisoned for reasons that are never fully clear. You wonder what the other senior lawyers are doing in this company, because Noyonika – a bright intern on a six-month probation period – finds herself arguing high-profile cases in court like she was never away for 13 years. Fortunately, nobody tells this former topper that “it’s like riding a bicycle”. Or maybe someone does and we don’t see it. I wouldn’t put it past a screenplay that treats the background score as the only screenplay. The show’s reading of struggle (and gender, and politics, and relationships) is so simplistic that it hurts. Noyonika just returns, which is lazy shorthand for a genius who’s back in the game. So what if she’s older, anxious, effectively a single mother, and the sole multigrain-bread-winner? I still can’t get over the new flat in which they live (she sells the Mercedes), and which several characters refer to as a small and scrappy place. I’m not asking for a drastic Baazigar-level downgrade here, but even the family’s skewed sense of privilege needs to look plausible. This is why eat-the-rich stories are having a moment.
Speaking of characters, there are quite a few in Noyonika’s trial by gold-crusted fire. There’s her ex-flame, Vishal (Alyy Khan), a partner in the firm who gets her this job. There’s the other partner, Malini (Sheeba Chaddha), a stern and chain-smoking boss who resents Noyonika for being a nepotism hire. There’s the hoodie-wearing rival intern, Dheeraj (Gaurav Pandey), who has a thing for Sana (Kubbra Sait), the street-smart office fixer whose answer to Noyonika’s question about a potential companion is “gareebi” (poverty). Yet, Sana hangs out at an upscale pub every other night, haunted by her affair with a Kabir-Singh-like cop (Aamir Ali). There’s a random politician, Ilias (Aseem Hattangady), who exists as an all-in-one Sengupta ally; he comes and goes, appears and disappears, influencing events when the writing reaches a dead end (Who you gonna call? Plot-buster Ilias!) without any discernible purpose. There are Noyonika’s daughters, who spend their time re-watching the sex tape of their father. Even if it is to determine whether the images are fake, the gaze is anything but forensic; it’s just very creepy. And there’s Kishore (Kiran Kumar), the maverick third partner of the firm who hides his dementia and predatory persona behind a mask of filmy flamboyance – which, in his case, means being followed by two sultry young assistants every time he enters or exits a room. There’s Daksh (Atul Kumar), the morally bankrupt primetime anchor who seems to emerge from the parallel universe of the equally guilty The Broken News . There are more characters, but I’m running out of space…like the Senguptas in their new home.
The format is familiar. Noyonika fights a new case in every episode – many of which are coyly inspired by real-world scandals – while her personal life becomes the narrative glue. But Guilty Minds, the well-researched and sure-footed legal drama in a similar space, will not be pleased. Noyonika’s professional challenges feel like a different story altogether, unconnected to the woman we see dealing with the distrust of her husband and family. At the cost of sounding repetitive, the tone of The Trial is shallow. (I’ve reached a stage where I google synonyms for “superficial,” as I did with Jee Karda and Taaza Khabar, shows penned by two of the three writers on this show). The dialogue tries too hard, especially during the cringey Noyonika voiceovers at the end of every episode. Why are they so echoey? Is she narrating her story to someone else in flashbacks? Or is it an internal monologue? Is it her head? Examples: “Change is the only constant: Mard ki fitrat aur maa ki zimedari (A man’s nature and a mother’s responsibility)”. Or something on the lines of “One love we deserve, one we desire, but above all, nothing can beat destiny”.