She review: Aditi Sudhir Pohankar is more watchable than the series is

MUMABI: Imtiaz Ali has given the audience some amazing Bollywood films. His work in Jab We Met, Rockstar, and Tamasha is unforgettable. The director tries to do something different in each new project.

Imtiaz has now made his digital debut as a director with Netflix's She.

He has co-written the series along with Divya Johry. She, which is directed by Asif Ali and Avinash Das, is brimming with potential but can't escape the inherent male gaze in its portrayal of female sexuality against the backdrop of the criminal underbelly in Mumbai.

She has very little to offer. The drama, cinematography, slow-build thrill, and performances make it watchable to a certain point. Bhumika Pardeshi (Aaditi Pohankar) plays a lower middle-class Marathi girl who is a constable with the Mumbai Police. She is picked up by a member of the Narcotics Bureau, Jason Fernandez (Vishwas Kini), to pose as a prostitute to bring down a drug cartel, in the same way she is 'picked up' by Sasya (Vijay Varma) in the brothel while she is undercover. The agency that Bhumi is allowed is sparse.

Bhumi struggles with her sexuality, and even though she finds it hard to use it as a weapon to capture these criminals, the only time in She that the gaze stays with the female protagonist is when she's exploring her sexual nature. How a low-ranking constable, who is widely considered to be 'manly looking', uses gender politics to gather intelligence about the drug business in Mumbai, and bring down criminals, makes for the rest of the seven-part series.

Cinematographer Amit Roy frames every episode like it's out of a crime graphic novel. Setting the show in Mumbai lends to the vibe organically. Vijay Varma and Aaditi Pohankar both perform their parts well, especially Varma, who slips into a Hyderabadi accent with ease.

Bhumi leads a simple life, has an old and sick mother, a rebellious and over-sexualised younger sister, and a nincompoop of a husband who she wants to divorce. She's the sole breadwinner of the family. But she can break free of these shackles through her tryst as an undercover agent. It throws only sporadic light on the one strong female character of the show in a narrative full of lacklustre men.

However, owing to the ineffective direction, She loses all the potential it builds in the first few episodes. The series doesn't hold back on the eroticism and often becomes campy. An example of this is the episode in which Bhumi is tested for her 'killer instinct' before she is recruited by the narcotics teams as an undercover agent. The manipulation and borderline sleaziness in this episode is at the level of B-grade erotic entertainment. If She were to commit to one tone, it would have been better. But it tries too hard to be an intelligent thriller series in parts, with limp erotic fillers in the middle.

She is edgy enough to be watchable but not up to the mark due to its weak direction and poor film-making. It certainly does not match up to the director's previous work.

Team TellyChakkar goes with a 2.5 for She.