I was trying to keep an open mind about Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's System when Neha (Sonakshi Sinha) says, “Uski vibe hamesha off thhi par woh murderer type kabhi nahi laga.” And that was that. I don’t expect every lawyer to speak in iambic pentameter or quote Thomas Cromwell. I do, however, feel it’s not unreasonable to have a protagonist in a legal drama—one who’s trying hard to prove she’s not a lightweight—speak like a professional and not some millennial at brunch.
Neha is a public prosecutor, though she’d rather not be. She doesn’t like the sweaty courts, the desperate cases, the grind, her boss. She’s also not particularly competent. The first time we see her in court, the judge explains that she needs to prove the accused actually committed the crime, not that he might have—and she looks shocked. So when her famous lawyer father, Ravi Rajvansh (Ashutosh Gowariker), makes her a deal—win 10 cases in a row and join my practice—it feels like a little exercise in humility, or humiliation.
Neha doesn’t have the awareness to notice court stenographer Sarika (Jyotika) silently mouthing the judge’s decisions before he’s finished delivering them. It takes Sarika almost getting run over by Neha’s chauffeur-driven car for them to have a conversation. As she alights, Sarika offers some cryptic advice about prosecutors too often focusing on what the accused did and not what they deliberately didn’t do. This somehow inspires Neha to win the case, and to offer Sarika a hush-hush gig as something between an assistant and a teacher. This sounds like a subplot better suited to the Jolly LLB films, but their partnership has a miraculous effect on Neha’s fortunes. She starts winning cases and soon befriends Sarika, who’s as much middle-class striver as she is posh upper-class.
Neha looks set to win her bet when she’s handed a nightmare assignment: a murder trial in which a powerful businessman, Bajral (Vijayant Kohli), is accused of killing an influencer. His lawyer, naturally, is Ravi. Soon, father and daughter are facing off in court. This could’ve been a lively battle of wills, but their scenes are terribly stagey and neither Gowariker nor Sinha is a deft enough actor to carry the shaky writing (by Harman Baweja, Akshat Ghildial and Arun Sukumar).
Sinha, as she often does, scowls her way through the film. She’s unable to bring charm or depth to Neha, who’s an untalented lawyer and a kind but uninteresting person (whatever meta gains were expected by casting Sinha as a woman struggling to get out from under her father’s shadow—it doesn’t work). Jyotika’s Sarika is interesting to begin with, a loving mom and wife, yet somewhat of a cypher. But the film makes certain demands of her as it goes along, and she can’t sell them with any conviction. This is more Iyer’s fault, for casting a steady but unspectacular actor like Jyotika, and for expecting her to make the bizarre final act of the film seem plausible.
Iyer’s best work has looked with curiosity at complicated relationships, whether it’s between parent and child (Nil Battey Sannata), lovers (Bareilly Ki Barfi) or professional partners (the Leander Paes-Mahesh Bhupathi documentary series Break Point). Had System actually stuck to being an unusual buddy film, it might've worked. Instead, it stumbles, belatedly and ill-advisedly, into legal thriller territory.
I won’t spoil the surprising turns System takes, except to say that the biggest twist is explained away so hastily that it’s clear the writers knew it wouldn’t stand up to careful scrutiny. Iyer reaches the same conclusion so many other Indian films have: when dealing with a broken justice system, retribution is the only answer. It’s a dark ending—but only superficially dark. Justice has been served; the viewer has been lectured; Neha has found her feet. A truly cynical conclusion would’ve had Neha absorbed into her dad’s firm, another brick in an uncaring wall.
‘System’ is on Amazon Prime.
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