Keeping the narration to six tight episodes, director Sahil Sangha gives the viewer an introduction that’s familiar – a family is glamour-struck and in tizzy excitement. Schoolboy Sunny (Mikail Vashisht) has got the break of a lifetime in Superdad, a lavishly budgeted film with blockbuster star Vikram Bajaj (Vivan Bhatena).
While mother Seema (Mona Singh) and her mother Neelima (Zarina Wahab) are already partying and calling Sunny a superstar, father Raghav Vashisht (Sharman Joshi) is the exception in the family who’s grounded and not swept away by dreams of stardom.
The familiarity in the introduction soon gives way to a harsh reality. Sunny has returned from his outdoor shoot noticeably upset and unenthusiastic over the big break.
Without the obscene language and graphic visuals that are awash on OTT today, writer Karan Sharma and Sahil Sangha lay out a taut drama with spiralling relationships. A middle-class family low on funds grapples with the sexual abuse of a minor boy, a wealthy celebrity shows his power and circumstances tug at Seema and Raghav’s conscience. Parallelly, familial bonds go through stress as daughter Shreya (Tejasvi Singh Ahlawat) misreads her parents’ apprehensions over her aspirations.
Much is packed into six episodes as a brother from another mother, an ex-wife, a star wife, a scoop-chasing journalist and dirty talk among schoolboys play their parts in a story that essentially asks, who’s guilty when a celebrity gets away with sexual misdemeanour?
Must Watch: “Ram Ki Chhavi Se Ched-Chaad Shobha Nahi Deta”- Ramanand Sagar’s Son (Exclusive)
Sahil Sangha is slick and linear in his storytelling with many points of tension that never crescendo in melodrama. Sunny’s friendship with Vikram Bajaj’s son Agastya (Ethan Manjani), squirmy scenes with Vikram, Shreya’s teenage desire to expose the perpetrator and the parents’ discomfort with their decisions, keep the unease going. Nobody’s completely right and everybody’s human enough to put a wrong step out. With relationships going under the scanner and charges being exchanged in heated moments, Raghav even unpardonably questions Sunny’s intent during a bout of frustration.
At one juncture, someone remarks, while stories of sexual exploitation abound about women, has anyone ever heard of a male being abused? It’s a telling point for this was a story that needed to be told.
Sharman Joshi and Mona Singh play the parents with the right amount of anxiety while Mikail performs well as Sunny, the troubled schoolboy, and Vivan Bathena is acceptable as the dirty celebrity. Although Zarina Wahab is at ease as Neelima the grandma who escorted Sunny to the outdoor shoot, it’s a character that isn’t around for the most part and wasn’t really required.
Mona Wasu (as ex-wife Meghna in lovely sarees), Preeti Jhangiani (as Vikram Bajaj’s glam wife Tanya) and Mukesh Chhabra (as Irfan Akhtar the nosey journo) are well cast.
The questions that Kafas throws up are a disturbing reality. Watch it, it does end on a note of hope.
Also Read: Review | Adipurush – Hey, Ram, Why, Om?