Guilty Review: A #MeToo Drama with Tons of Potential!

Directed by Richa Narain, Guilty on Netflix stars Kiara Advani, Gurfateh Singh Pirzada, Akansha Ranjan Kapoor and Taher Shabbir in the lead roles. The storyline is about a college girl who is slut-shamed within 15 minutes into the movie. And the onset of ‘Guilty’ is about how the incident took place as the remainder of the movie explores the investigation side of it. Guilty Review Guilty Review Netflix

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Taher Shabbir plays the part of the lawyer trying to defend the accused. His investigation brings in multiple plots and conflicting storylines, which confused me quite a bit, the Me Too movement has been referred multiple times during the movie as it displays how a woman is asked to shut up and compromise her life by settling down, rather than speaking up. It exposes college politics and how the rich and privileged always have an advantage.

Guilty also highlights the impact of social media and how a single tweet can cause such chaos. It also made a feminist assertion that speaking up and standing up for yourself is the right thing to do. And the combination of Netflix India and Karan Johar’s Dharmatic is a perfect blend of dealing with social stigmas and desi drama.

The actors completely justified their roles through their decent performances. Kiara Advani is the true superstar in the movie who plays the character Nanki—the girlfriend of the accused who is dealing with her own traumas. Contrary to what we’ve seen in Kabir Singh, she’s been seen sporting torn T-shirts, multiple tattoos and colored hair. Personally, I loved her characterization and her style in the movie. Akanksha Ranjan Kapoor plays the role of a small-town girl and she portrayed her character well with her unique accent and satisfactory performance.

Moving on from the performances, the writing of the film could have been better as the first half of the narrative reveals a majority of the stakes involved, and the second half seemed like an exaggeration. There was no attention to detail as quite a few facts seemed to be awfully inaccurate.

Filled with character assassination, victim shaming, and social media manipulation, Richa Narain assured an exciting ride with Guilty, but couldn’t deliver it. I was a bit disappointed with how the movie ended because the story did seem to have potential, and is primarily not well-written like the movie Pink starring Taapsee Pannu. However, the final few lines of the movie “I’m ready to speak up now, but is anyone ready to listen?” won my heart. Watch the movie on Netflix to find out who is really ‘Guilty.’

‘Guilty’ Rating – 2.75/5 | Grade – C+

Images via YouTube / Netflix