Maharani 3 Series Review: Huma Qureshi struggles to flare up this doused political thriller

There is a death early on in Sony LIV’s Maharani 3 and everyone gathers to pay their respects at a godman’s abode. There are ministers present who discuss the reasons behind the person’s untimely death and whether it was a planned murder. Suddenly, their mobile phones ring and one by one, all of them check a video that has been forwarded. Even though the series is set in the early 2000s, when watching videos on the phone was still a farfetched ambition, it can be attributed to creative liberty. The video is a media report that blames the current Chief Minister Naveen Kumar (Amit Sial) for the murder. The ministers look visibly shocked. Suddenly, Naveen enters the hall and the energy changes. Out of nowhere, reporters swarm him and ask questions right inside the hall where the dead body is lying and the family members are grieving. Naveen answers the media and goes to pay his respects. In just one scene, the series establishes a lot of things and quickly resolves them, leaving you dissatisfied. It is the classic violation of the ‘show, don’t tell’ principle, something which pulls the series down from reaching any emotional highs.

Director: Saurabh Bhave

Creator: Subhash Kapoor

Streamer: Sony LIV

Cast: Huma Qureshi, Amit Sial, Vineet Kumar, Pramod Pathak, Kani Kusruti, Anuja Sathe, and Sohum Shah

After the events of the last season, three years have passed. Rani Bharti (Huma Qureshi) is in jail for murdering her husband Bheema Bharti (Sohum Shah). She is not languishing there but enjoys benefits like having her own cell with monthly visits by the doctor. Right from the start, we know she is wrongly accused while the real culprit runs the state of Bihar through dubious means. The only one who doesn’t believe in her innocence is her teenage son Jay. Rani wants to win his trust and denies seeking bail as she wants to get herself acquitted in the case. However, her plans are cut short when her children are attacked outside the school. The next minute, she calls up the lawyer in anxiety and out she comes.

There is no denying that Rani is a strong character. She is a woman of great resilience and strength in standing against the men in politics. She gets past their taunts and multiple attempts at belittling her. We see her doing powerful things but it seldom makes us feel anything. It is as if we know she is the strongest person who will rise up in glory every time. Due to this, even when she has moments of victory, it doesn’t register strongly. Huma’s singularly timed performance doesn’t help either. She tries to be a dominant figure and is given lines which she delivers according to the underlying emotion, but it is just not enough. Her accent and efforts to pull out a dialect come in the way of going deeper into the psyche of the character. When she comes on screen, we see her making sharp movements with eyes thickly laden with liner. However, her performance doesn’t reach beyond that. More than the emotions, what gets noticed is the way she says the lines, leaving you distracted and disconnected.

On the other hand, it is Amit Sial who brings authenticity with his minimalistic performance. Even when the writing does not utilise him fully, he embodies the arrogance and subdued glory of the chief minister successfully. It is a treat to see the emotions glide through his face as he becomes Naveen Kumar in body and spirit. Dibyendu Bhattacharya as the IPS officer Martin Ekka is riveting and so is Vineet Kumar who plays the senior minister Gauri Shankar Pandey. There is a natural flair to his performance, particularly in the serious scenes where he adds layers with his quirky antics. In a show, where the writing needed to be sharper, it is the performances of the supporting cast that keep it together.

Maharani 3, directed by Saurabh Bhave and created by Subhash Kapoor, tries to critique the present times through a tout political thriller. However, it fails to hit its mark. In a poignant scene where Martin tries to convince a senior officer to take action in a case, he invokes the lines of the poet Muktibodh. He says, “Jo hai use behtar chahiye (We need something better than what we have)”. Sadly enough, the same can be said about the series.