Stream It Or Skip It?
If you’ve paid any attention to TV series and movies from India, you know that traditional gender roles are still well-embedded in their society, and it informs any story that comes from that country, whether it’s a comedy, a police drama, or even a reality dating series. In a new thriller, a successful video game designer has to deal with misogyny in her own industry, along with trolling that turns into real violence.
Opening Shot: An unconscious woman in a red dress is on the beach at night. A group of fisherman find her.
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The Gist: Three days earlier, we see Kavya Rajaram (Shraddha Srinath) riding a scooter on her way to work, giving positive messages to her live viewers on Instagram. She reads the comments, both positive and negative, as she gets into the office where she works as a game designer at Moon Bolt. Her boss, Roshan (Dheeraj Kher), tells her that she’ll be interviewed by a well-known gaming YouTube channel; she’s nominated for an award for the game she designed, Honey Ruin.
Roshan tells her and her assistant Anne (Ayama Harini) that she needs to be aware during the interview that she represents the company. During the interview, though, the host not only calls her “beautiful,” but it seems that all of her accomplishments are discussed in terms of how they relate to her husband Anoop (Santhosh Prathap), who also works at the same country and is the lead designer of the popular game Masked Mayhem. The host even asks about their personal lives as a couple. Not surprisingly, Kavya gets ticked off at the line of questioning, saying “We’re game designers, that’s it.” She then walks off, much to the anger of Roshan.
Kavya had already had to deal with organized trolling by a group named Vetti Pasanga, but she has told Anoop and others that it’s harmless and she can handle it on her own. After the interview, though, the trolling increases, with the commenters sending images that are more violent-looking than they had been in the past.
She wins on the night of the awards ceremony, which makes the other (male) nominees visibly upset. Anoop is very supportive, until he sees birth control pills on her purse. He’s been wanting to start a family with Kavya for awhile, and she keeps telling him that she wants to wait until both of their careers are established. But he’s upset that she keeps putting it off. On the way home, the argument gets so bad, she gets out of the car and makes plans to meet her friend Meghna (Misha Ghoshal) at a local pub, which Meghna seems to confirm via text. When she gets there, though, not only does Meghna not show up, but her wine gets spiked, causing her to wobble out of the bar, award in hand.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Game: You Never Play Alone is like a very unfunny version of Mythic Quest.
Our Take: Watching The Game: You Never Play Alone requires a bit of a cultural reset if you’re not all that familiar with gender roles in India. There may be some misogyny in the gaming industry all over the world, but this series shows that it’s dialed up to 11 in India, mainly because there is such a hardened sense of traditional gender roles there. This is what Kavya faces on a daily basis, especially because she works in the same industry as her husband. She can’t be recognized on her own merits, and she gets questions about her marriage and personal life that male game designers would never get.
But the trolling is the biggest danger. It seems that the fact that she’s a woman, and she’s put herself out there on social media, has made Kavya a target from an organized group. But it seems like whoever is behind the organized trolling is just one of the suspects in the attack that leaves her unconscious on the beach. She also seems to have resentful colleagues at work and rivals among other game designers. In essence, this thriller is a pretty standard mystery about who would want to see Kavya hurt or even dead, with the gaming world as a backdrop.
There does seem to be some side stories floating about, like attackers wearing masks like those seen in Masked Mayhem and the fact that Rohan is more concerned about keeping the name of the company and its games out of the press than he is about the wellbeing of his employees. Also, Kavya takes pains to make sure her brother in law, who is in recovery but his alcoholism has something to do with Kavya sister’s death, stays away from her niece Tara (Hema). Inspector Banumathy (Chandini Tamilarasan), who investigates the attack on Kavya, faces misogyny on her job, as well.
But the thrust of the show will be just who is trolling and threatening Kavya, and in the first two episodes things take enough turns to keep viewers engaged.
Sex and Skin: Any sex is implied.
Parting Shot: We see people in Masked Mayhem masks following a drugged Kavya as she stumbles out of the pub.
Sleeper Star: Ayama Harini’s Anne feels like she’s there to not only keep Kavya on time and on task, but she doesn’t seem all that shy about telling bigwigs like Rohan if they’re doing something wrong.
Most Pilot-y Line: The dialogue is mostly in Tamil, and it sounds like just about everyone dubbed in their dialogue during post-production. It’s so obvious sounding that we went down the Netflix language menu to make sure we were watching the show in its native language.
Our Call: STREAM IT. While The Game: You Never Play Alone is in many ways a thriller we’ve seen before, we’re intrigued by the backdrop of India’s gaming industry and the inherent misogyny that Kavya is subjected to on a daily basis.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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