Leila - TV Series (2/5)

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Leila - Too many causes and all are lost

Leila is Netflix TV Series from India directed by Deepa Mehta based on a novel written by Prayaag Akbar. Leila is dystopian drama based in the year of 2047, a story where environment resource is scarce and there is a huge divide in society created by fictional nation Aryavratta which is ruled by Dr. Joshi (Sanjay Suri). The nation is divided between communities separated by huge walls and segregated based on caste where clean air and water is luxury limited to very few.

The story revolves around Shalini (Huma Qureshi) who lost her daughter "Leila" and being imprisoned for purification because she was married to Rizwan Chaudhary (Rahul Khanna), a Muslim man. In Aryavratta, anyone who marriages outside caste/religion considered as sin and been sent for shuddhikaran (purification) which is as good as a prison. Shalini struggles in purification camps and finally run away to find the whereabouts her daughter. She is then captured by Guard Bhanu (Siddharth) who becomes her supervisor for labour works in the city. Shalini start working in one of the engineers of Aryavratta's SkyDome and learns that there are revolutionaries who are trying to assassin Dr. Joshi as his SkyDome project will kill the ghetto where all poor and low castes live. Siddharth promises to find Leila for Shalini and ask her to help him to assassinate Dr. Joshi.

The series is bit patchy and confuses you what's the point directors want to make. The narrative is lost between being dystopian drama, scarcity of resource, the emergence of high caste Hinduism, a love of a mother and a revolution in making. It's a very bad attempt and one can see how director and writer trying hard to establish political undertone by hiding behind the mother-daughter story. The direction is average and the plot doesn't convince you or take you to the era what this series trying to portray.

It's quite a lame and average watch which you can easily afford to miss. If they really want to make dystopian drama, take a cue from Black Mirror and be honest with the story and stick to it without any hidden agenda to defame any religion or political ideology.

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