Murder In Goa:
The tagline for 36 Days is ‘Secrets are injurious to health.’ The secrets point to an inordinate amount of dysfunction in a small cluster of villas tucked away somewhere in Goa, where tourists have not yet discovered an isolated stretch of sand.
Adapted by Anahata Menon from the first season of the Welsh noir crime series 35 Diwrnod, and directed by Vishal Furia (Criminal Justice, Chhorri), the series (on SonyLiv) is a classic whodunnit in a slightly different format. No detective comes in to solve the murder case; it begins with a corpse, and then goes back over 36 days to examine what happened over that period to lead to the killing.
In the first episode, the victim is seen as a shadowy figure behind windows—Farah (Neha Sharma) has just moved into Casa de Magnolia, a gated complex of swanky villas in Goa, and instantly set cat amongst the pigeons, as a sexy, single young woman is wont to do—perhaps more in movies than in society. She drives a flashy red car, has a red stewardess uniform, as she enters and exits the vicinity, dragging her strolley. She also languorously lounges by the pool in a bikini, is ogled by the men of the Casa (in Goa a bikini is not such a rare sight), and instantly disliked by the women.
The neighbours include scientist and author Dr Rishikhesh Jaykar (Purab Kohli), his sulky wife Radhika (Shruti Seth), and two teenage kids; there are the eccentric Machados—Denzil (Kenneth Desai), his wife Binafar (Shernaz Patel) and mentally disturbed, divorced son Riad (Faisal Rashid). The aspirational Lalita (Amruta Khanvilkar) and her disgruntled casino manager husband Vinod (Sharib Hashmi) do not seem to belong to this Casa, but are lodged there due to the largesse of the loud, vulgar landlord, Tony Walia (Chandan Roy Sanyal), who lords it over the property and his wife, Sia (Chahat Vig).
The residents seem friendly enough, drinking together and throwing the occasional party, but each bungalow has its troubles. Denzil, locks himself up in his studio and logs into a porn site, which invites blackmail; Lalita peddles drugs for Tony to fund her lifestyle; Rishikesh and Radhika have past unresolved animosity still simmering.
Into the tasteful, and outwardly placid environs of the neighbourhood, when the outside world intrudes, there is trouble – like Sia’s transgender friend Tara (Sushant Digvikar) who annoys the sexist, boorish Tony; Lalita’s drug dealing brother Bobo (Shivam Patil) chased by the cops; the drug kingpin Noel (KC Shankar), or even the rat in Binaifar’s kitchen, that has far-reaching consequences. Farah’s entry into the closed community bothers everyone for their own reasons, so any of them could be her killer. It does not matter who killed Farah, they all self-destructed by the time she lay in a blood-soaked heap on the floor.
The actors bring in their disparate strengths – flamboyant Sanyal and Digvikar, muted Kohli and Seth, a bit theatrical Patel, Desai and Rashid, competent Khanvilkar and Hashmi, and the sultry Neha Sharma.
The eight-part series moves at a leisurely pace, and everything that happens does not necessarily connect to the murder. The helter-skelter format is more to build suspense and indirectly comment on the corrosive effect of pretense, or the damage caused by ignoring mental health issues. All that acid bubbles under the stylish interiors of the villas with their muted colour, pretty foliage, and the aerial shots (Qais Waseeq) of the nest of bungalows set like a jewel amidst verdant surroundings, without any eyesore construction in sight to block the beach. The location could be a good reason to watch the show—just like the wedding movies influence fashion, this might give home décor ideas to viewers.
(This piece first appeared in scroll.in)
