Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of Solang Valley is an uninteresting, tepid adaptation of an Agatha Christie mystery by Vishal Bhardwaj.
Director: Vishal Bhardwaj
Cast: Wamiqa Gabbi, Priyanshu Painyuli, Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Neena Gupta, Gulshan Grover, Lara Dutta, Paoli Dam, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Imaad Shah, Vivaan Shah
Where to watch: SonyLiv
Rating: 2 stars
Vishal Bhardwaj has developed a reputation for adapting classic literature into rooted Indian stories that resonate with the audience and adopt the nuances of the land very brilliantly. Having done this for a trio of Shakespeare tragedies and a couple of Ruskin Bond books, the director decided to bring a good old Agatha Christie mystery to India. Alas, here he fails miserably. I’m not sure if it’s the webstory format or the choppy writing but Charlie Chopra & the Mystery of Solang Valley is an insult to Christie’s writing, Bhardwaj’s filmmaking, and waste of a stellar cast.
Set in Solang, Charlie Chopra & the Mystery of Solang Valley follows the titular detective (Wamiqa Gabbi) as she attempts to solve the murder of a local retired armyman (Gulshan Grover) and exonerate her fiance (Vivaan Shah), the victim’s nephew who is the prime suspect. Navigating the web of deceit and lies, Charlie must uncover the truth while finding out uncomfortable truths about her fiance’s crazy family (played by a gamut of amazing actors).
Charlie Chopra works on just one level – the setting. An adaptation of Christie’s The Sittaford Mystery, the show recreates the snowy Dartmoor quite well in Solang. The ambience, the gloom, and the setting are good. But despite being a whodunnit, the plot never engages you. You are never fully invested in the characters and by the time the eventual reveal happens, you have stopped caring about who really did it.
The show intends to be the first season of a recurring series by the looks of it, as it introduced elements of Charlie’s past, only to not fully reveal them, setting the stage for a season 2, a new mystery. But the problem with that is that Charlie Chopra is not that interesting of a character. Wamiqa is a talented actress and she brings her most likable self to make you fall in love with Charlie but fails due to a lacklustre script. The fourth wall breaks, which are supposed to be endearing, come across as gimmicky, and the whole premise falls flat.
The actors are left short changed. Veterans like Naeeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah are left with very little to do, given very stereotypical and unidimensional roles. Gulshan Grover and Neena Gupta have moments where they shine but are otherwise trapped in boring roles themselves. Priyanshu Painyuli is the only one who jumps out because his character has more life and spunk than any other. And the actor performs it with panache.
The biggest disservice the show does is to the memory and legacy of Agatha Christie. Her mysteries were page turners. If you picked up a Marple or a Poirot, chances were you would not pick it down till you had read till the end. She kept you hooked. With Charlie Chopra, you simply can’t wait for it to end so that you can move on to other, more interesting things.
