It is not difficult to get involved with the digitally driven characters of Applause Entertainment’s Tamil series The Game: You Never Play Alone. The writing is succinct and on the ball, with characters, though not particularly endearing (the cyber villains doth protest too much), who get under your skin after a while.
Then there is the female lead played by Shraddha Srinath, an actor with an appealing, assertive screen presence and an intuitive understanding of what to say when, and to whom. I don’t think there could be a better choice than Srinath for the part of the Shero Kavya Rajaram, a woman who spunkily ploughs her way through sexism and misogyny in the gaming universe.
And when targeted online (success in a man’s world being her crime) for a vicious attack, Kavya fights back with all her might.
Most likeably, Kavya is a Shero with chinks in her armour. She cheats on her husband, Anoop (Santosh Pratap, quietly supportive), when he doesn’t deserve it, gets drunk and creates a scene, and sees no harm in being combatively competitive.
Shraddha takes her character through its rollercoaster journey with a keen eye for physical and emotional details. I wish some of the supporting cast was less drab, which, in a way, works to the central character’s advantage as Kavya makes her way through the same grimy gauntlet that Shraddha Srinath does.
Director Rajesh M Selva handles the tough edges of the headline-ish plot with a minimum fuss. These are gamers who are on top of their game.
A subplot addressing a minor’s violation of privacy echoes actor Akshay Kumar’s recent shocking revelation about his daughter. This subplot could have been handled less generically. Nonetheless, the series negotiates the plot-holes with reasonable grace.
As a cautionary tale, The Game: You Never Play Alone works just fine. With a central performance that cements all the cracks in the storytelling, this could well be the only game-changer (pun intended) worth our while in the digital domain.
