telltale: my take on what I watch on screen

  Across the world, many cases of sexual assaults go unreported. In India, as per a study, these could be as high as 99% of the cases. Similar studies in the United States suggest that these cases are grossly under-reported. One of the most cited reasons among many is the lack of trust. We tend to blame the overall system for this dreadful situation. However, the first two episodes of Unbelievable are enough to give you a glimpse on why the people who are part of the system are equally to be blamed. Unbelievable opens with 18-year old Marie Adler being raped by a person who breaks into her apartment. She reports this to the cops only to be disbelieved by them. Cops with pre-conceived notions about her, based on what they read in her background file, dismiss her case assuming she is false-reporting. In the second episode, there is another victim of sexual assault – and we see a different detective handling the victim in a complete opposite manner wherein she is comforted. As a r...

Whodunnit murder mysteries – is a genre which has been a favorite of story tellers and audiences since ages. Our minds immediately associate this with Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason or Hercule Poirot. Despite watching and reading a lot on this subject, it continues to evoke interest. A plot where a murder happens and a detective investigates to find the killer – that’s how simple the basic premise of stories in this segment are usually. What makes it work is that it does not turn out to be as simple as it seems and far more interesting than it sounds.   Streaming now on Netflix, is one such story, where an inspector investigates a patriarch’s death after a family gathering gone wrong. No, I am not talking about Knives Out, another brilliant movie starring Daniel Craig with a similar plot. I am describing the plot of Raat Akeli Hai , starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui who plays an inspector investing the murder of an influential person in a small town in UP. The victim is murdered in hi...