Aarya review: Sushmita Sen shines amid the dysfunctional family crime drama

• Director: Ram Madhvani, Sandeep Modi, Vinod Rawat
• Cast: Sushmita Sen, Chandrachur Singh, Namit Das, Sikander Kher, Maya Sarao, Vikas Kumar, Manish Choudhary among others
• Producer: Endemol Shine India, Ram Madhvani Films
• Where to watch Aarya: Disney+ Hotstar

Aarya Review:

Refreshingly set in Rajasthan, this series is an out-and-out Sushmita Sen series. She plays the perfect mother who transitions into someone who would protect her family at any cost. Her transition is slow yet brilliant through the series.

Aarya happens when one is looking for an extraordinary story within the everyday life. It’s an every-family story in the first episode. A house with a shiny exterior exuding perfection can have the quintessential trapdoor, with every major dangerous thing hidden within that trapdoor, rattling its chains, waiting to come out to engulf the rest who remain unaware of what is to come. That is where Sushmita’s Aarya steps in. Chandrachur Singh’s Tej, along with two other business partners run some illegal operations that lead to some irrevocably devastating consequences. These devastating consequences are to be handled by Aarya, who in the beginning struggles to understand the dynamics of the chor-police-goons chase, but later not only catches on, but almost competes and overruns with the men in the mafia.

Not a lot of families survive that. And Aarya, is a representation of just that – survival and evolution. Aarya is the one holding the family together, as the menacing narcotics (played in a nightmarishly tenacious way by Vikas Kumar’s ACP Khan) and goons chase her for the remnants of sanity, dignity and wealth that she has retained right from the first episode.

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What works:

Director Ram Madhvani’s conviction in Sushmita Sen’s character worked its charm. While the show is not as fact-paced and power-packed at every minute as the trend of web series currently goes, it show the nuances of how childhoods are scarred, innocent minds are introduced to things more sinister waiting in the shadows. And the same shadows that hide within the adults, showing up sometimes in times of need as saviours, sometimes as a necessity as monsters.

This can perhaps perfectly be fitted when Sushmita's Aarya in the conclusive episode says, “kabhi kabhi baat galat ya sahi ki nahin hoti, galat aur kam galat ko hoti hai.” She's fighting a battle to protect her family. An instinct so human that it's perhaps the base for most crimes, and therefore crime dramas. Her silent-yet-resilient love for her family is what drives the show to its end.  

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Threre’s not much one can say without giving away too much about the series – and that’s the beauty of it. The intricate web spun out of the storyline has one single event act as a dominoe that scatters the rest of the family. Aarya transition is marked by Khan’s “you are a completely changed woman” – not required as a dialogue, but perhaps Khan’s intrigue and almost borderline obsession with what Aarya hides is evident. Vikas Kumar is frightening and deserves a huge applause for this performance.

Chandrachur Singh makes an impact in the episodes. While not much can be said without giving away one too many spoilers, it would have been great to see more of him as he has indeed come back alive on screen after a rather long time. His love for music somehow fits in like a glove when Tej goes on to hum some old Bollywood classics. Namit Das’ Jawahar is the perfect embodiment of a ‘mafia deal gone wrong’ as his character struggles to stay afloat throughout and yet add some unexpected plot twists.

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What doesn’t:

The pace. This show may not be for everyone who is used to watching fact-paced, edgy and compulsively addictive dramas. Aarya takes it’s time to grow on you, and with each episode’s cliffhangers, one may debate whether to go on to the next episode immediately or simply laze with the pace equivalent to the series has in watching it. One can find this show tough to ‘binge’ on.

Verdict and final thoughts:

Not a lot of crime-dramas may be called this, but it is a beautiful show. Sushmita Sen shines through this entire series with every character’s act provoking the best within her. Direction takes it to another level – to the point where one can feel all the kids’ emotions right through even in their silent wishes and pleas. Despite the mildly lazy storytelling pace, Aarya comes as a breath of fresh air against the crime dramas that fill its silence with cusswords and sexually explicit content simply for the sake of drawing eyeballs.

Rating: 4/5

Watch Aarya trailer here: