Rating – *** (3/5)
Requoting the famous idiom, ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ to ‘a glitch in time saves nine’ or even more might give you an adept understanding of what to expect from the Zee5 series, Gyaaraah Gyaarah (11:11). Firstly, to make it clear, unlike what many are terming it to be, the show is not a time-travel presentation per se but more so about the communication between two people belonging to two different timelines (1990 to 1998 and 2016) which leads to alterations in the past affecting the present and further, leading to some unanticipated and dire consequences. An official adaptation of the Korean show, Signal – which itself was inspired by a real-life incident of Hwaseong murders – the recipe to make this story deliciously mysterious and an edge-of-the-seat thriller was right there. does it succeed? Let’s find out.
Making It Desi & Dumbing It Down
Our history with time-travel stories or incidents in the same vicinity hasn’t been encouraging to look up to when it comes to their depiction on-screen. Filmmakers, more often than not, have struggled with two extremes – taking absolute liberty and creating something that is mind-numbingly complex thus kicking you out of the world right away or dumbing it down to such an extent that it feels lethargic and almost an insult to the viewer’s intelligence. Seldom has it happened that any filmmaker has been able to find a balance between them when it comes to Indian audiences. Gyaaraah Gyaarah pirouettes on both ends of this spectrum sporadically but never fully. There are moments of genuine shock value and intrigue and it all begins with the first instance of Raghav Juyal’s Yug talking and being left dumbfounded while talking with Dhairya Karwa’s Shaurya across the timelines.
However, once the ordeal gets predictable and repetitive, the cause-for-effect loses steam and keeps getting more and more banal. As any normal human being, the first question that hits your mind more than anything else is ‘What the hell is this?’ and ‘How am I to even believe this is happening to me?’ and even ‘Am I sane?’. Juyal’s Yug, who is an inquisitive mind otherwise when it comes to solving mysteries doesn’t quite question this weird phenomenon and instead conveniently begins relying on it to change the present and the past.
Logic takes a serious hit time and again and so do the character developments on Kritika Kamra’s Vamika and a few other characters that belong to both timelines. Her adoration and respect for her then-senior, Sharuya is understandable but despite a riveting cliffhanger, we are never fully enlightened with her actual reason for holding on to his disappearance for about 16 years, so much so that she has a disdain towards getting married to someone else. Vamika is a senior, who is preempted to have gone through hoops to become one, and more so being a woman in a man’s world but there is almost nil depth in exploring her character arc. To her credit, Kamra being a fine actor, invokes a huge sense of believability and concern for Vamika even when the writing doesn’t give her any scope. However, owing to the juggling act of never making it too complex and dumbing it down too much, director Umesh Bist loses the plot on a few instances on how to move forward with it.
Better Character Arcs & Genuine Intrigue
The men, thankfully, have much more sketched-out characters despite a few flaws. Juyal is the man in focus here and while there are flashes of his backstory that lend some credibility to his curiousness and psychological eye towards cases, there is, once again little scope for exploration for the actor otherwise. But being in a purple patch, Juyal shines once again and you can see his effort to make sense of what is a simmering broth of unlikely ingredients. Karwa as Shaurya does well too where his encounter with wondering about the glitch in time leading to talking across with a man in future seems a lot more perplexing and bewildering but in a good and human way. His decisions lead to personal losses and the man mysteriously disappears out of nowhere, Karwa gets the most meat to five into and does well. The late Nitesh Pandey is a fine sidekick who lends humor and compassion on a few instances, just when needed.
Gyaaraah Gyaarah mostly wins when it is solving the murders that affect the timeline glitches but isn’t able to humanise the personal stories of the three primary characters enough for you to be invested. For context, the Korean show, Signal clocked around 16 episodes with an average runtime of 65 minutes each but the Zee5 show is reduced to eight episodes averaging 40 minutes – thus becoming a case of so much being crossed out. It is understandable why this is done and a cliffhanger in the dying moments sets things up for a certain Season 2 which might give more clarity but even then, the show is a mishmash of uncooked storylines and overly cooked storylines. This does lead to an engaging viewing experience with some aforementioned edge-of-the-seat moments but leaves you with more questions than answers, and not entirely in a good way.