Q: You know what they say about good surgeons?

A: Their hands never shake.

This pops up in more than one conversation in Accused. What it attempts to convey is the sudden turmoil that Geetika Sen (Konkona Sensharma) finds herself in. A celebrated gynaecologist in the UK, Geetika has it all — a career on the upswing, a steady marriage (with Meera, a paediatrician played by Pratibha Rannta) and a reputation that she has painstakingly built over the years. However, Geetika’s life undergoes a seismic shift when she is accused of sexual misconduct at work. What starts off as an anonymous allegation quickly turns into a collective pointing of fingers, threatening to upend all that Geetika has at present and aspires for in the future.

What is also on shaky ground, unfortunately, is Accused itself. The film, directed by Anubhuti Kashyap, written by Sima Agarwal and Yash Keswani and streaming on Netflix, has a bunch of interesting ideas, which it starts off strong with, but squanders midway. Chief among them are the two female leads being cast as a same-sex couple, with the interactions between the duo being treated as regular, without the film going into the territory of tom-tomming it as a lesbian relationship. What Accused also kicks off interestingly with is the format of a thriller, with most of the players, as their layers are peeled back, appearing to have more than fifty shades of grey.

Through Geetika — a woman in a man’s world who doesn’t waste any opportunity to wrest control — Accused talks about manipulation, gaslighting, dominance and the abuse of power, which, however, is mostly spelt out in the form of an expository sequence towards the end instead of being woven into the screenplay. What could have been an in-depth look at the increasingly blurry line between black and white ultimately turns into a half-baked thriller with an ending so predictable that it will leave you eye-rolling at the rate of 100 per second.

Billed as a relationship drama with a dash of mystery and a sprinkling of gender dynamics, Accused has Geetika and Meera’s world falling apart within a nanosecond of the former announcing that she has got a much coveted promotion and that the two of them are adopting a baby. Geetika — known to brook no nonsense as a professional — is not the most popular person at Chapelstone Hospital. So when an anonymous accusation arrives in the form of an email saying that she has been indulging in inappropriate behaviour with her patients, Geetika finds herself not only battling the world outside but also losing out on her relationship at home. Meera is the more accommodating partner of the two, and while it does get interesting to see the dynamic between her and Geetika — who strives to wield her power both at home and at work (“Don’t raise your voice at me,” Geetika tells a frustrated Meera at one point, though she has been constantly doing the same herself) — slowly unraveling, Kashyap doesn’t see it through, preferring to skim the surface.

Also, as far as the mystery factor goes, Accused builds its intrigue by relying too much on conveniently placed red herrings, which ultimately feel like a let-down when faced with its cop-out climax.

That is a pity because the film did have potential, packed as it is with promising ideas. Among them is the sexual harassment angle which, for a change, doesn’t involve a man and a woman but a woman facing off against several other women. When a character tells Geetika: “Normally the victim is a woman”, she retorts with: “Even now, the victim is a woman.” This is an aspect that Accused could have examined far more but what it prefers to do is show repetitive scenes of Geetika getting more infuriated, Meera getting more exasperated and the viewer getting more and more detached from what is playing out on screen.

Konkona and Pratibha — who was last seen in Laapataa Ladies — are both effective performers, but they struggle to rise above the mediocre script. Mashhoor Amrohi as Bhargav, Kallirroi Tziafeta as Sophie, and Monica Mahendru as Simran lend able support, but Sukant Goel overdoes the quirky private investigator act.

Finally, Accused is a case of what could have been. What it remains is wasted potential that doesn’t even try after a point. Guilty as charged!

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