When you watch The Trial- Pyaar Kaanoon, Dhokha you’re reminded of how masterfully the idiom “even in the best families” is used. Noyonika Sengupta (Kajol), a mother of two girls, appears to have it all from the outside, a luxurious lifestyle, a lavish house, and whatnot. However, a little scratching causes numerous cans of wriggling worms to spill out, keeping us entertained while we watch the eight episodes of the web series director Suparn Verma has created. Yes, underneath all that glitter there is muck and grime, and even the best families have their share of this.
An Indian adaptation of the CBS series The Good Wife, the courtroom drama sees Kajol, a housewife who is forced to return to work as a lawyer after her husband’s public scandal puts him behind bars. After a few initial hiccups, she takes charge, growing in confidence and aplomb, facing down one challenge after another.
The Trial is a genre series that’s not too ambitious. The show knows its limits and remains quite basic as a courtroom drama with a strong emotional core, which works in its favour. The key revelations aren’t all that stunning, but the focus is more on the journey than the final goal for us, the audience. The cliffhangers at the end of each episode don’t make any big revelations but at the same time, they serve their sole purpose of creating a desire to know more.
The show sets up quite a pace. It moves swiftly, and that is probably the best and worst quality of it. While the characters and smooth storytelling are all to the good, there are also the dips, contrived scenes, and loose ends, which most of the time stick out like a sore thumb. For the most part in this lavish runtime of eight forty-five minute episodes, even though stretched a bit too much at times, the story remains on track. A few subplots seem to be forcefully fit and don’t add anything to the narrative.
The characters and the actors contribute heavily to build up intrigue, despite a rather rudimentary premise. The show fleshes out characters apart from Noyonika and gives their respective actors enough screen time to make them believable and, memorable. A big pleasure of this series is being able to watch so many good actors, all getting something substantial to do- Ally Khan and Sheeba Chaddha as lawyers and partners, Kubbra Sait who works as a consultant for the attorney firm, Amir Ali as a cop, Gaurav Pandey as a junior lawyer and Jisshu Sengupta proves an equal match to his co-star, mixing suavity with toughness.
But the series never really takes its eyes off Kajol, and the never-a-hair-out-of-place, always immaculate actor, clad in elegant pastels along with some immense confidence, is the backbone of the entire show. When everything around her seems to be falling apart, and especially when you see her with her husband, you wish she would get a little rumpled or ruffled. However, it’s fantastic to see Kajol return to the grid and develop into her role, particularly when she starts to emerge as a woman who realizes her natural toughness and learns to keep one step ahead. The actress ensures her dazzling confidence and tenacity are as affecting as her gently expressed empathy and disgust. Whether it is tackling the various cases or picking up her broken family, Kajol packs a punch.
The Trial, by no means, is extraordinary, yet it keeps you interested in the characters and their lives and emerges as a good example of basic storytelling done right.
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