An Officer and a Gentlewoman

If there is anyone who can equal Sarah Lund, the troubled detective in the Danish hit series Forbrydelsen, it is Konkona Sen Sharma in Forbrydelsen’s Indian adaptation Search: The Naina Murder Case.

Upright, able to convey nuance, and possessed of an economy of gesture that is unusual in Hindi cinema, Sen Sharma plays ACP Sanyukta Das, a Mumbai police officer who has to get to the bottom of a high-profile murder. She has a teenager who talks back (don’t they all?), a husband who is waiting in Ahmedabad for her, and a mother who is quite tired of babysit­ting her.

So far, so good. It is when the mystery is plotted that Search fails Sen Sharma. Naina, the young stu­dent who is murdered, was always a shadow, but those who may have had a motive to kill her seem to be con­structed in a hurry. Add to it the irrita­tion of the mystery not being resolved by the end of the episodes, setting us up for a sequel, and Search is a wasted opportunity.