The Trial Review: An In-Form Kajol Leads This Bumpy Remake of The Good Wife (LatestLY Exclusive)

The Trial Review: Suparn S Varma's The Trial is an official remake of the American legal drama series The Good Wife, with a desi twist. Like Disney+ Hotstar's remake of The Night Manager, The Trial keeps reminding you it is an adaptation by having a character keep nam-dropping the American title while referring to the protagonist. They could have made him say 'Dharampatni', and he even does once, but would that have made you wince each time you hear it? The Trial: Makers Release Kajol’s New Poster Featuring Her as a Gritty Lawyer and a Housewife in the Upcoming Disney+ Hotstar Series.

Here, Noyonika Sengupta (Kajol) is 'The Good Wife', whose life turns upside down after her husband Rajeev (Jisshu Sengupta), a judge, is embroiled in a sex scandal and arrested on bribery charges. To support her two teenage daughters, Noyonika and her family move to a more modest accommodation and she decides to become a lawyer again, a profession she gave up to raise her family.

She joins a law firm run by a self-declared feminist lawyer, Malini (Sheeba Chaddha), and Vishal (Alyy Khan), who also happens to be Noyonika's ex-boyfriend from law school and still has feelings for her. Noyonika also has to compete with a rookie lawyer, Dheeraj (Gaurav Pandey), and gets close to the firm's investigator, Sana (Kubbra Sait). She proves herself to be a competent lawyer, but her firm expects more than just victories from her.

Noyonika also has to deal with her husband's incarceration and how the allegations against him have affected her and her daughters. There is also the question of whether he has been framed by a vengeful politician, Jadhav (Rituraj Kumar), or is actually an opportunistic person.

Watch the Trailer of The Trial:

Even though The Trial has an overarching plotline, each episode also deals with a particular case that challenges the legal ethics of the protagonist, and some raise questions as to whether justice always does the right thing. The legal cases that Noyonika gets to handle are inspired by real-life events in India. For example, one case is inspired by the alleged suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput and the media trial that followed, which vilified the actor's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty. Of course, the names and characters have been changed, and a loudmouth anchor named Daksh Rathod (Atul Kumar) stands in for a certain real-life loudmouthed news anchor that the whole nation knows.

These cases and the courtroom dramas that follow keep The Trial engaging, even if some of the stories have rather convenient endings. However, it was enjoyable for me to see Kajol to shine in these portions. Even the over-extended plotline regarding her marital woes and her growing proximity to Vishal, leading to an uneasy triangle with Rajiv, keep the tempo running. For a change, I didn't find her teenage kids annoying, as is often the case with some very popular Indian series. Instead, they get to do something productive, even if it doesn't get the desired results.

However, I can't help but feel that certain subplots and scenes are rushed in order to increase the pacing, and this dilutes their meaning for the narrative. For example, when Noyonika finds something incriminating against the third partner of the firm, played by Kiran Kumar, he threatens her legally to keep quiet and continue his case. But the very next scene has him dropping the firm and walking out to start his new one. What happened in between?

Similarly, in one episode, Noyonika breaks the trust of a witness in winning a case, but this is simply passed over after a few seconds of remorse. Noyonika's daughters discover that their father's sex-videos videos (which should have been traumatising for them to see) were manipulated, but how this affects the end-outcome is never made clear. Sana's physical relationship with a cop, Pradeep (Aamir Ali), feels weakly written and is easily ditched later on. Another such victim of secondary treatment is Dheeraj, whose blow-hot-blow-cold rivalry with Noyonika has its moments. However, as a character, I hardly get to know him well, apart from being shown as an opportunist. Towards the end, he reveals his own sob story that propagates his determination to be a lawyer, but this is never reflected anywhere in his earlier scenes. A little more peek into his personal life – apart from showing him accidentally ingesting a hash brownie – could have made this match less one-sided.

There are also some writing loopholes that feel hard to ignore. For example, Noyonika is hard-pressed on money that she hasn't paid six months' worth of school fees for her daughters. However, she not only lives in a rather spacious flat in the centre of the city, but also sends her kids to a posh school. Later, she is also seen paying a witness enough money to leave the country, which truly makes me wonder why she didn't pay those fees.

Look, you may think that I am cribbing here, and you are right since The Trial is a fairly good show. I am just expressing my disgruntlement, since The Trial did have the potential to be a truly potent series about the legal mis-structure in our country and of a woman rising the ranks simply through her talents and determination. When Rajiv – embroiled in a sex scandal himself – accuses her of using the job to be close to her ex, Noyonika shuts him down, arguing how that accusation never applies to men who go for jobs, but if a woman is successful, her sexual integrity is called into question. I applauded. The cases that Noyonika handles are intriguing and sometimes truly feel the need of the time, like the one where Daksh is brought to the stands and how it once again exposes media running news simply on Twitter trends. However, it is pulled back from being a fine legal series like Amazon Prime's Guilty Minds because of its glaring writing oversights and some soap melodrama that kinda weakens the finale.

The actors are mostly good, with Kajol leading the show with the confident gusto that I feel was missing in some of her recent ventures. The actor brings her star aura to her character, which helps in keeping the spotlight on her, while also simply killing it when her performance needs to shine. Kajol's fans will also be surprised to see the actress have a couple of kissing scenes in the series, her first in 29 years. Kajol to Break Her Onscreen No-Kissing Policy After 29 Years in The Trial? Her Co-Star Alyy Khan Spills The TRUTH in This Throwback Video - WATCH!

Another actor who leaves an impact is Alyy Khan as her conscientious colleague, who is looking for the right opportunity to be back in her life. Sheeba Chaddha, as usual, owns the screen whenever she appears, though her character motivations remain very unclear and muddled. Kubbra Sait is on fine form here. The girls who played Kajol's daughters – Shruti Bhist and Suhani Juneja – are good enough.

Final Thoughts

The Trial had the material, the genre-benefits and Kajol's undeniable star-power to be a good legal drama series. It's therefore unfortunate that the show doesn't completely live up to its potential thanks to some rushed subplots, flimsy treatment of character traits and convenient writing, and that's a bummer. All eight episodes of The Trial season 1 are streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 14, 2023 09:53 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).