Cast: Tamannaah Bhatia, GM Kumar, Pasupathy, Vivek Prasanna and Aruldoss
Director: Indhra Subramaniam
Ganesan (GM Kumar), a crime novelist suffering from Alzheimer’s is spotted at a murder scene with no memory of what happened. His daughter goes to extreme lengths to save her father who is the prime suspect of the murder.
November Story opens with a bus accident (1995), dead bodies and blood spotted all over the place. There seem to be no survivors except for a little girl, who is weeping inconsolably. Later to be revealed that the little girl is Anuradha Ganesan played by Tamannaah Bhatia. Cut to the present day, we see Anuradha, an ethical hacker struggling with problems. Her father is an Alzheimer’s patient and is becoming difficult to live with. She needs money to fund his treatment, so she decides to sell a family property and needs her father’s consent for the same. Ganesan denies and is adamant regarding the property’s sale yet Anuradha keeps meeting brokers and potential buyers. On the other hand she has to deal with illegal hacking happening at her workplace. Later, she finds her father with a dead woman, she met earlier on train with a mentally ill girl, who turned to be her sister. Much later she understands that all these issues are interconnected and starts her quest.
November Story has few strong ideas, for the first time we get a close look at the life of the doctors who perform post-mortems. It is not an easy job as it is both physically and emotionally taxing. Kuzhanthai Yesu’s flashback portions were shot well and his character is complex and intriguing too.
Tamannaah Bhatia did her part well, dialogue delivery and dubbing didn’t suit well at places. Pasupathy is the scene-stealer, though his portions were predictable, as an actor he proved himself. GM Kumar fits the bill aptly and deserve special appreciation. Vivek Prasanna didn’t have much screen space, but the scenes in which he is seen works well.
When it comes to writing, the story plot is little complicated, it is poised as a whodunit. The characters, the incidents are in bits and pieces in the first five episodes making it difficult for the viewer to stay intact with the series. Eventually, the revealing takes place in the ‘Truth’ episode and it is kind of shaky and predictable.
Vidhu Ayyanna’s cinematography is top notch, it kind of saved the sinking ship with haunting and raw visuals. Unlike other Tamil shows, in November Story we sense a clear aesthetic guiding the cinematography, production design, music and the sound design.
Overall, November Story though didn’t work well as anticipated, encourages more web series to get made in Tamil. It would have been a great murder mystery, if not for its length and logical loopholes.
November Story is now streaming on Hotstar.
