Netflix’s new thriller Shaque wants you to suspect every face on screen. The story begins in a hospital where ‘Anvita’ loses her baby, ‘Apeksha,’ and refuses to move on even after eight years.
Parineeti Chopra plays that long grief with honesty, Jennifer Winget as ‘Sakshi’ brings soft menace, and Anup Soni as ‘Khurrana’ is the only steady ally. It starts strong as a mother-versus-town mystery, but messy clues and easy confessions dilute its promise.
Parineeti Chopra anchors a mystery that leaves you suspecting everyone
Parineeti Chopra returns after two years, and she plays ‘Anvita’, a mother whose newborn baby, ‘Apeksha,’ is kidnapped from a Shimla hospital on the day of birth. The show then jumps eight years ahead.
‘Anvita’ still celebrates the missing child’s birthday every year, and she still believes her daughter is alive because a faceless photograph arrives each year from the kidnapper. Chopra plays this grief with sincerity. She makes ‘Anvita’ look exhausted and restless and sometimes unstable, a woman who sees her daughter in every little girl she meets and who refuses to accept the truth.
For the unversed, Parineeti Chopra found out that she was pregnant in real life during the shooting of the film and that maternal energy adds truth to her scenes. Her performance holds the centre even when the writing around her becomes convenient.
The strongest support comes from Anup Soni as Officer ‘Khurrana’. He is the only person the show allows you to trust. He has investigated this case for eight years; he reads tarot cards and says the cards never lie, and he remains loyal to ‘Anvita’ when everyone else gaslights her. Soni brings calm and amiability, and he almost becomes the real protagonist.
Jennifer Winget as ‘Sakshi’ is another key presence. She has just moved to town with her husband ‘Gaurav’ and their nine-year-old daughter. That daughter is exactly the age ‘Anvita’s’ child would have been, which makes ‘Anvita’ fixate on them. Winget plays ‘Sakshi’ with controlled eyes and quiet tension, and she makes you unsure whether she is hiding something or simply being targeted by a desperate mother.
The rest of the ensemble fills out the circle of suspicion. Harleen Sethi as ‘Shreya’, the best friend of ‘Anvita,’ Tahir Raj Bhasin as ‘Alok’ or ‘Advit’, the husband who is having an affair with ‘Shreya,’ Sumeet Vyas as ‘Bhaskar’, the doctor husband of ‘Shreya’ who has dark secrets, and Soni Razdan as ‘Madhu’, the mother-in-law who believes in black magic and occult rituals.
A decent story loses power due to convenient writing
Shaque is created by Siddharth P Malhotra and Rensil D’Silva, with D’Silva writing and directing all seven episodes. The idea is solid and familiar in the vein of Harlan Coben stories. A gloomy mother searching for a missing child, an obsessed investigator, a new family whose child could be hers, and a town full of red herrings.
The tagline, ‘Trust No One,’ is taken literally, and every character is painted as shifty from the opening maternity ward scene. That is both its strength and its weakness. The series is binge-worthy to a point where you want to know who took the baby and whether the child is found.
The misty lanes of Shimla, the cool tones, and the lurking shadows give it a cosy crime drama look. But the mystery is pushed forward through shortcuts that make it hard to believe the investigation. Suspects confess too easily when confronted, crucial information is handed over without reason, and major breakthroughs arrive long after the evidence was already available.
For example, Officer ‘Khurrana’ gets missing CCTV footage early but notices the crucial detail much later, and his team does nothing meaningful with it until the plot needs it. At a crucial moment, he goes alone to confront suspects instead of taking his junior. An illegally obtained DNA report is used officially to nail the culprits, and no one contests it.
The subplots about illegal surrogacy, child trade, tribal practices, and black magic with baby skeletons are introduced to divert attention, but they make you care less about the main quest. The tone also wobbles. At times it tries to be serious, and at times it becomes unintentionally funny, like a card game where everyone shows their hand by mistake.
The direction feels serviceable at best and melodramatic at worst, like an old television soap with faster camera moves. Chopra and Winget do their best, and Razdan and Sethi make you dislike them convincingly, yet the writing forces the mystery toward the most convenient twist. The child is indeed found, but by then you end up trusting the writer the least, which is not what the tagline intended.
Have you watched all the episodes of Shaque on Netflix? Let us know.
PC: Netflix India/YouTube
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