Title: Maharani Season 4
Director: Puneet Prakash
Cast: Huma Qureshi, Vipin Sharma, Kani Kusruti, Pramod Pathak, Vineet Kumar, Shweta Basu Prasad, Shardul Bharadwaj
Where: SonyLiv
Rating: 4 Stars
Maharani Season 4 revolves primarily around Huma Qureshi as Rani Bharti, the Chief Minister of Bihar, locking horns with Vipin Sharma, who plays the Prime Minister. This season focusses on India's coalition era, along with the themes of political rivalry, corruption, and changing loyalties, not only within one’s party, but also your family.
Actors’ Performances
Vipin Sharma's opening scene in Maharani Season 4, is when he is reading out a history chapter to students and is narrating, probably in the voice of Aurangzeb, and that narrative style of his sets the tone for his character, as for the first time you actually begin to see things from an evil, malicious king’s perspective and maybe, understand or sympathize with him. And herein lies the strength of the role which Vipin portrays- that of a powerful, corrupt and evil politician with the ultimate power in a nation. At the same time you also get a glimpse of his human side, when you get to know of his romantic relationship with a woman which is not known by society at large.
While i could easily say that he is the standout performance in this series, the fact of the matter is that there could be so many contenders for a best actor award if we would just have to choose from this cast. The names for that list which i would surely want to take are Kani Kusruti as Kaveri Sridharan, Rani's secretary, Pramod Pathak as Satyendranath Mishra, RJSP chief secretary, Vineet Kumar as Gauri Shankar Pandey, in a role where he is proud of being called a cockroach, Shweta Basu Prasad and Shardul Bharadwaj, who manages to essay all the shades of his greyish character with conviction, and along with these many more. And ofcourse, there is Huma, who, with this season being the fourth one, many school children might even start believing that she is the chief minister of Bihar, regardless of what happens in the ongoing elections.
Directed by Puneet Prakash and created by Subhash Kapoor, the strength of this 8 episode season lies in the fact there isn’t a single scene which felt like a drag.
There are certain facts about politics that you learn throughout the episodes- That coalition parties, when they need you, will praise you to high heavens, and the moment your use is over, they will forget who you are, or for that matter, they will dig out that file which they have kept on you, which has all the things which can be used against you and use it for a sensational media trial.
When anybody is involved in political entanglements, then them suddenly dying at a crucial moment of a heart attack does not necessarily mean that it was a heart attack.
Politics is such a field in which you don't know when your own family members, whether it's your son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father could turn against you, could be used against you. And on many occasions, you can't even blame them because they are part of the pieces, no matter how powerful, of someone else's chessboard which are being moved around.
Also, the intro montage of the web series is one of the most one of the finest which I have seen in a long time.
FPJ Verdict
Overall, if politics interests you, watch it, if it doesn’t interest you, still give it a try, because interestingly, the timing of Maharani Season 4 coincides with the Bihar Assembly Elections.
