Once again set in a hill station like a few of the recent series, Mithya at least hasn’t got everyone searching for a serial killer for a change. It has a murder, of course, but the focus is entirely upon the relationship between a Hindi professor Juhi (Huma Qureshi), and her student Rhea (Avantika Dassani), making an interesting start.
The trouble begins when Rhea gets accused of plagiarism in her writings and that turns her into a psycho youngster, mysteriously interfering in her professor’s personal life. Based on the British TV show Cheat, Mithya becomes an exciting thriller, right from its first episode itself and one expects something novel coming ahead, intensifying the conflict.
Though the narration yet again falls back to a murder investigation focusing on the key suspects, it remains watchable for the two lead performances by Huma and Avantika (daughter of Bhagyashree). Huma perfectly fits in the role of an unsure professor wearing simple attires (sarees) and Avantika makes a confident debut as the disturbed kid of the college trustee. They both get good support from the cast including Parambrata Chatterjee, Rajit Kapoor, Avantika Akerkar, Neil, and more.
Keeping one intrigued in its first two episodes, the series soon gets into unnecessary stretching and repetitions, breaking the likable flow. And then a familiar kind of revelation of the past fails to bring in any surprises diluting its overall impact. The later episodes also make you think that maybe it would have been a much better product as a two-hour movie instead of a six-episode mini web series. Besides in one of its sequences, the husband of the professor so casually offers hard drinks to the female student of his wife, visiting the house for giving the notes. The scene seems to be blindly adapted from the British original without giving it a thought as per the Indian settings.
Forcibly concluding like a typical series, Mithya hints towards the conflict continuing in its second season. But hope director Rohan Sippy finds something better to rely upon exploiting the talent of his lead actors. In short, Mithya largely becomes watchable because of Huma and Avantika in particular, beginning on a very promising note. However, it misses the opportunity to be an exceptional, spine-chilling psychological drama.
Rating : 2.5 + 0.5 / 5 (With the additional 0.5 for the worth noticing debut by Avanitka)
(Streaming on Zee5)
Bobby Sing
bobbytalkscinema.com
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MITHYA (Web Series) Review by Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com, New Hindi Web Series Reviews by Bobby Sing, Indian Web Series adapted from British TV show Cheat, New Web Series at Zee5