Rating: 2.5/5
The leading Indian original digital platform The Viral Fever (TVF) has plunged into the short film world. TVF have created ‘TVF Spotlight’ for the same. Chosen Few is the first original from TVF Spotlight. Here is what we thought of it.
Chosen Few is based on a true story of under-aged girls trafficking in the underbelly of Mumbai. It narrates the story of a Special Police Officer, Abhay Joshi and a girl Sani. When a Special Police Officer (SPO) Abhay Joshi conducts a raid; he is only able to rescue one girl.
Sani is not able to control her emotion and stay in the outside world. She wants to be with her friend Anita, who is a co-sex worker. Abhay Joshi is distraught by her condition and decides to rescue the other girls, at any cost. In the process, he wants to bring back normalcy to Sani’s life by uniting her with Anita. He attempts another raid to catch the nexus red-handed. What happens, in the end, is the basic plot of this short.
Chosen Few is an honest attempt that gives us a picture of grim reality. There are a few sequences that are heart-wrenching and sure to move even the stone-hearted. The actors do their job well.
Unfortunately, the narrative is not as gripping as it should be. The whole thing seems very nondescript. The few moments, as mentioned previously, stick out, but the narrative as a whole fails to create the necessary impact. The journey lacks the engaging factor or rather the immersive feeling.
It seems that a larger narrative has been condensed into a short film. We do not have any emotional investment with any character despite the visibility of such a possibility. It gives us an impression that maybe the whole thing was a trail to capture a darker narrative that the TVF has not attempted before. It is not bad, by any means, but it lacks uniqueness and comes across as dull.
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