The Staircase
After causing quite a bit of stir internationally, The Staircase has made its way to Indian screens as part of Amazon Prime India’s latest acquisition of a bunch of HBO originals.
Those familiar with the documentary of the same name on Netflix won’t be too surprised by what happens in The Staircase — about a writer facing charges of homicide after his wife is found mysteriously dead at the end of the staircase at their beautiful home in Durham — but this eight-episode series, though a tad overstretched, whips up genuine drama. Tonally strong and shifting seamlessly between multiple timelines, The Staircase remains an engaging watch, providing an effective commentary on society’s vicarious fascination with tragedy, even as a dysfunctional family with a complicated dynamic wrestles to get to the bottom of the mystery.
The Staircase benefits from strong central performances, especially that of Colin Firth as the accused man in the middle, who plays Michael Peterson as someone with so many secrets that you aren’t sure whether to sympathise with him or ostracise him. He keeps you guessing till the end. Anything with Toni Collette is always worth a watch, and her Kathleen Peterson, the victim whose life is played out through flashbacks, is flawless. The Staircase has a stellar cast — Juliette Binoche to Sophie Turner — and despite its flaws, we strongly recommend that you make time for it.
Available on: Amazon Prime Video
Indian Matchmaking 2
“Sima from Mumbai” is back... and so is our favourite guilty pleasure watch! Season 2 of Indian Matchmaking — which should actually be renamed ‘NRI Matchmaking’ given the number of Indians in America falling over themselves to enlist the services of ‘Sima aunty’ — returns with double the drama and a whole lot of familiar regressiveness. Sima Taparia travels the length and breadth of the US meeting a bunch of non-resident Indians with varying accents, all of who are well educated, have high-flying jobs and an upwardly mobile life, but are keen on matching horoscopes and consulting face readers to meet a prospective match and get married.
Indian Matchmaking is not to be taken seriously and one has fun watching the show even through its most cringe-y moments. The players go from quirky to weird to borderline obnoxious. There is one who will only marry a boy who knows how to speak Gujarati. She also describes herself as “Ovo-lacto-semi-vegetarian”. Go figure. Another rejects a girl because he was looking for “sexual chemistry” with her while meeting her for the first time with a roomful of his relatives. The list goes on and on, getting worse with each watch, but it was so-bad-that-it-was-good-enough for me to keep watching till the anticlimactic end.
Aparna and Nadia return from Season One, and are still single at the end of Season Two. Pradhyuman returns too and proposes to his girlfriend right after describing her as his “soul sister”. That’s how bizarre this show is.
I would be a millionaire if I got a penny every time Sima said, “You have to adjust, then the life becomes beautiful” (sic). And yes, if you stay in Nashik, forget about your chances of ever getting someone to marry you. I am not saying it, the show is!
Available on: Netflix
