Sushmita Sen: Her almost-extinct movie career was rekindled with the unexpected success of her streaming debut in Aarya, the only big hit on OTT with a female hero in the lead. The home-viewing medium is now wooing her with tons of money for everything including the second season of Aarya. Sen-sation second innings.
Kirti Kulhari: Bollywood and Hindi cinema didn’t know what to do with her, where to position. After Four More Shots Please and Criminal Justice 2 this beautiful actress has blossomed into a prime product of the OTT platform. Interestingly Kirti never felt constricted by lack of opportunities on the bigscreen. Seeing into the future, she knew one day the big screen will be inside every household in the country.
Mita Vashist: In this gripping web series about a seemingly incorruptible judge who puts his reputation at stake when his son commits a crime, Mita Vashisht’s sly cop act furnishes a vinegary flavour to her strong stubborn character. Vashisht plays the cop Kiron Sekhon (any resemblance to Bedi was certainly not coincidental) as a mixture of attentive and disdainful. I just couldn’t take my eyes off her stolen steely scornful glances at the guilty-as-sin Judge. Every time Jimmy Sheirgill and Mita Vashisht are on screen together, you want to see just where their conversation is going. The words they speak seductively encircle their cat-and-mouse game in this energetic engrossing and altogether gripping tale of empowerment privilege and their misuse.A tremendous performance.
Swastika Mukherjee: Playing the neglected wife of a media baron, this very accomplished actress infused a startling stillness signifying a supreme sadness into her part. The cheated betrayed disillusioned wife is clinically depressed . But she never wallows in self-pity and rises above her own grief to seek and seize the happiness that she deserves. What a lovely character played with such delicacy, and such glaring contrast to the other disgruntled wife Swastika played in the crude Black Widows.
Geetika Vidya Ohlyan: Playing a Rajasthani migrant in the story Vishaanu in the Unpaused anthology Geetika whom we all remember for her sterling performance in Netflix’s Soni, endows such a high level of credibility to her character that I wanted to see more of her. Maybe a whole film instead of a half-hour segment? Geetika in a sequence where she makes all the right noises about Mumbai in exchange of food and masks,is a class act,as too when her face crumbles on realizing that the temporary luxury abode where she , her husband son are hidden, must come to an end.This is an actress who needs just one shot to nail her character.
Kriti Kharbanda: Films about gangsters, guns and internecine vendetta seldom have space for well-written female characters. Here in this dark meditation on machismo, Kriti held her own as the self-willed Pakistani live-in girlfriend of Jim Sarbh. When she is challenged taunted and insulted by her boyfriend’s father at a wedding dinner, Kriti gives it back to him politely.Devoted to her man to the extent of selfruination, she brought dignity to her character’s self-effacing love. You can be a slave for love,without being a walkover.Kriti’s performance proved it.
Did we miss anyone on the list? Let us know in the comment box below. Keep reading IWMBuzz.com.
