A still from ‘Class’ | Photo Credit: Sachin Soni/Netflix
A ghost is haunting the streaming platform; a specter of sexual teenagers involved in murder investigations explicitly in shows like 13 Reasons Why And Riverdale,
ClassIndian adaptation of Spanish hit show Aristocrat class, directed by Ashim Ahluwalia, Eager to provide a commentary on the class struggle that rages in the underbelly of every metropolitan city in India, the embers of which occasionally rip the fabric of society. However, the eight-episode long show bites off more than it can chew.
Class
Director: ashim ahluwalia
Throw: Gurfateh Peerzada, Anjali Sivaraman, Ayesha Kanga, Chayan Chopra, Chintan Rach, Kawayal Singh, Madhyama Sehgal, Moses Kaul, Naina Bhan, Piyush Khati, Jane Shaw
Episode: 8
story: Three students from a poor neighborhood attend an exclusive high school for Delhi’s elite where dark secrets and rumors eventually lead to murder.
Hosting budding actors, the show is set in Hampton International, a private school in Delhi that boasts of huge swimming pools, prestigious MUN conferences and prestigious scholarships to study abroad – an ideal dream school Ideal… until a student is found murdered outside the school premises and his acquaintances become the prime suspects.
Like the original, the show traces the events leading up to the tragedy. After a suspicious fire at the Noorpur Khatola Government School, three students from the low-income school enroll in the Hamptons on scholarships. Dheeraj Valmiki (Piyush Khati) is a determined student who is determined to put this opportunity to good use and escape poverty, while Balram ‘Balli’ Patwal (Kawayal Singh), who claims that his English is a “bullet train”. Well, she’s big on protein shakes and making a name for herself in the modeling industry; He wears his 289K+ followers on Instagram like a badge. Saba Manzoor (Madhyama Sehgal) is the dutiful daughter of Kashmiri immigrants, who helps her father in his business after school, and aspires to become a foreign diplomat.
The trio’s presence at school and in Delhi’s elite social circles is enough to invite the scorn of their classmates who bully them for their accents and ridicule them for their dreams. Elaborate schemes are hatched out of jealousy, insecurity, teenage infatuation and the greed to put them down. While it’s hard to find the reasoning behind drawing up the plans, they certainly promise a lot of drama on drugs.
Madhyama Sehgal as Saba Manzoor in ‘Class’ | photo credit: netflix
The police investigation following the murder – high on emotions and feelings – is difficult to watch with a straight face and dilutes the whodunit story of the show. The police are mostly used as mere tools to further the plot, rather than as actual characters investigating a murder.
Ashim Ahluwalia, in his attempt to adapt the Spanish show for Indian sensibilities, takes a lot on his plate and fails to serve a seasoned critic; From homophobia and casteism to Kashmiri migrants and Islamophobia, he touches on them all but fails to delve into these issues.
The debutant doesn’t look particularly different, and the textbook over-the-top expressions don’t help his case; His arrogance feels forced, and humility out of place.
Class Not revolutionary, but something. The show is honest in taking plot devices and character sketches from the original, but just getting the bare bones of the plot doesn’t promise a good adaptation.
Season One of Class is currently streaming on Netflix