Aranyak: One Of The Finest Web Series Of 2021

Star Cast: Raveena Tandon, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Ashutosh Rana, Anna Ador, Breshna Khan.

Director: Vinay Waikul

Rating: 4.5/5

Netflix's Aranyak, starring superstar Raveena Tandon, is making her comeback, after rocking the 80, the 90s and early 2000. The series produced by Ramesh Sippy and Siddharth Roy Kapur has turned out to be one of the popular web series and a great way to wrap up 2021.

The show created by Rohan Sippy, written by Charudutt Acharya and directed by Vinay Waikul borrows its title from a famous Bengali novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, literal meaning ‘of the jungle’.

What Is It About:

A new SHO (Parambrata) is selected at a police headquarters in a far-off town in the North of India because the former one (Raveena) is requiring a year-long holiday to be with her family. Out of nowhere, an old case is reopened as the mythical criminal is located again in the town. What's more, Tandon needs to ricochet back to attempt to substantiate herself. Legislative issues, class separation and strategic manoeuvring manage everything.

The plot of Aranyak is tangled in a web of lies, subterfuge and betrayals. The seeming idyllic and slow pace of life here is disrupted when a young French girl on holiday is found hanging from a tree in the forest. When news spreads that she was raped before being killed and that there were claw marks on her throat, painful memories from almost two decades ago resurface. 

What's Good: 

The show-stealer as expected is Raveena Tandon who is playing a hard-nosed small-town cop. Tandon is at the core of Aranyak’s gripping narrative, an eight-part series set in a fictional town in Himachal Pradesh.

Aranyak’s screenplay constantly stays on top of the many twists and turns that the show abounds in. It aptly captures the setting of the forest, the shadows in the dark, and the overall surroundings which are equally mysterious as well.

The cinematography and the production design seamlessly add to the narrative to further underscore the atmosphere of fear and foreboding that pervades.

Each episode, mounted with reasonable production values, as simple as they may seem, is moderately paced with a plethora of characters, organic transitions and plausible events, keeping you hooked to its very end.

What's Not:

In the initial six episodes, the show plunges into countless directions that can confuse the audience. 

Final Verdict:

If you missed Raveen Tandon on screen, you should definitely watch this. Tandon is the star of the show, playing a woman whose simple and direct policing methods are driven by native intelligence and a steely resolve. Another reason to watch this show is Parambrata Chattopadhyay, who delivers an impressively poised performance.