November Story

However, November Story does score high on the engagement factor. Barring the final pay-off that is not exactly an organic culmination, the series largely works. We aren’t left too long with the stories of Yesu and Anuradha that we begin poking holes into their narratives. There is a lot of activity, even if they don’t necessarily add up. The forced humour, in particular, fails to add any flavour. Scenes involving Aruldoss and other cops or some of Vivek Prasanna’s sequences may be attempts at comedy, but the tonal shifts are jarring. These misgivings notwithstanding, November Story is still largely all right, especially in comparison with some notorious competition in the Tamil OTT space.

It is very essential for any crime thriller or murder mystery to work wholesomely; they need to have a solid payoff. Tamannaah Bhatia’s November Story, an extremely well written, slow-burning thriller, has pretty much everything to stand out, but it does get let down by a slightly underwhelming payoff. Nevertheless, it’s a show that deserves a lot of praise, especially for the writing which succeeds in keeping one hooked right from the first episode. In spite of the disappointing end, there’s so much to like in the show and how it builds some solid cliffhangers in each episode.

Director Ram Subramanian’s story has the potential to be converted into a taut thriller. But, the paper-to-screen translation did not work in his favour. Every character has a back story and is well-developed. Yet, the story has major logical loopholes that put you off. Also, the story going back and forth in narrative gets taxing beyond a point. Certain scenes were unwanted and were simply placed for convenience. The hacking episode at the police station, for example, is one such. It seems unwanted in the larger scheme of things and also gives you the impression that it was placed just to find out clues in the murder case. Jamming so many things into the screenplay makes you feel that the proceedings have been deliberately made complicated to keep the audience guessing.

Anuradha has a lot of problems in this web series, and so do we watching it. The pacing is seriously off; it is poised as a whodunit, but takes its own sweet time to establish characters and also likes going off on flashbacks. The elements are far too many, and even slowly digresses into three narrative subplots. The writing does not hit the mark too and leaves many loose ends. Even the lip-sync is off in a few places. But these problems are sort of compensated thanks to some good performances that go beyond the scope of their characterisation. Tamannaah puts up an effective portrayal, though her dialogue delivery and dubbing is a little off at times. GM Kumar fits the bill aptly, while Pasupathy is the scene-stealer; he scores highly in some of the crucial sequences.

November Story unfolds largely as a whodunit, and writer-director Indhra Subramanian manages to keep us hooked with several likely suspects and red herrings.