Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors Season 2 Review : Watch it for interesting storytelling and stellar performances

STORY: A beautiful house, a well-respected family, a doting husband and a loving daughter – Anuradha Chandra had it all. This was until she gets accused of stabbing her husband Bikram and leaving their 13-year-old daughter Rhea to deal with the shock all be herself.

REVIEW: ‘Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors’ focuses on Anuradha aka Anu Chandra (Kirti Kulhari), the wife of a successful lawyer Bikram Chandra (Jisshu Sengupta). In the opening scene, Anu is shown as a nervous and depressed individual who consistently fails to remember things. Bikram, on the other hand, after winning a case, is trying to reach her multiple times but she ignores his calls. This obviously makes Bikram suspicious of his wife’s behaviour. In the middle of that fateful night, Anu stabs her husband. And that’s not all, their 13-year-old daughter Rhea (Adrija Sinha) hears some commotion and somehow witnesses the unfortunate incident.

The prime accused Anu Chandra has confessed to stabbing her husband. While many believe it to be an open-and-shut case, Anu’s subsequent silence and reluctance to defend herself makes one wonder - is there more to the case than what meets the eye?

As the court and the media believe Anu is guilty, almost all the attorneys in town reject her case and support Bikram. Finally, a small-time lawyer, Madhav Mishra (Pankaj Tripathi), enters the scene as he sees this case as an opportunity to earn a lot of money. He even makes everyone believe that “every person is innocent until proven guilty.” To fight the toughest case of his career, he once again teams up with Nikhat Hussain (Anupriya Goenka) to find out the real motive behind the murder.

Directed by Rohan Sippy and Arjun Mukerjee, this eight-part suspense thriller is intriguing, especially due to a growing sense of unease and menace circling the central character. Together the duo walks us through everyone’s opinion on the crime committed and how they are emotionally affected by the case, courtesy: good performances. From the beginning, it’s evident who the culprit is — leaving no curveballs — but, what keeps the viewers on the edge of their seats is the unfolding of the reasons why she did it.

‘Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors’— an official adaptation of Peter Moffat’s series ‘Criminal Justice’ — splits into two halves; one follows Anu’s inner conflicts and her journey in jail where she meets Ishani (Shilpa Shukla) who takes her under her wings. And the other follows the trial and investigation highlighting the underlying causes of this tragedy that unfolds one by one until the final verdict. Overall, Apurva Asrani’s screenplay is intense and gripping but it takes too long to set up the whole premise. However, viewers are very likely to be emotionally involved in the story.

Kirti Kulhari gives a heart-wrenching performance as Anuradha Chandra, a voiceless married woman. She speaks more through her silence than the actual dialogues. Parallel lead Pankaj Tripathi is stellar as the street-smart lawyer, Madhav Mishra. The eccentricities of his character are a welcome (comic) relief, especially his one-liners and the conversations between him and his wife, Ratna (Khushboo Atre). Nikhat Hussain’s (Anupriya Goenka) character plays a greater role in pushing the narrative forward this time. Deepti Naval as Bikram’s mother, Vijji Chandra, is outstanding. She is well-supported by her family friend, Mandira Mathur played by Mita Vashisht. Despite being in prison, Shilpa Shukla as Ishani is striking. DCP Raghu Salian (Pankaj Saraswat) alongside his team of Pradhan’s—Harsh (Ajeet Singh Palawat) and Gauri (Kalyanee Mulay)— lend good support in this suspense thriller, which is a mix of old and new cast members.

In a nutshell, this second installment of the Criminal Justice franchise starts off at a very slow pace but turns into a discussion about marriages being a facade for domestic violence later. Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors’ has its heart in the right place and thus, makes for a good watch.