How far does one have to stretch to describe the new Malayalam mini-series on SonyLIV as science-fiction? The series is called Eyes, and it is based on a computer application that needs to be monitored by a special team in a bid to prevent repeated cases of stalking in Kerala. The idea is Minority Report meets Black Mirror, but the treatment is anything but realistic. Director Manu Ashokan applies a surprising amount of faith and conviction to its far-fetched conceit, resulting in an unputdownable series that’s also unapologetically pulpy.
This five-member team comprises two police officers, a software developer, a psychologist and a psychiatrist, and it becomes their duty to surveil a handful of candidates who are supposedly just one fight away from committing murder. The seven-part series, for the most part, also divides each episode into specific stalkers and the dynamics of their cases. If the series begins with a starlet being stalked by a photographer, we gradually move on to episodes about an alcoholic and his childhood sweetheart, a small-time drug mule and his lover, and the sensational marriage of a high-profile IAS officer and his influential wife. But the show’s pulp doesn’t arise from these characters or case files.
For starters, it begins with the notion that the aforementioned stalker must agree to wear a prescribed smartwatch for the Eyes team to begin their surveillance. Not just this, but the said stalker must also sign up for regular blood tests to ensure they’re committed to a set of prescribed medicines. The practicality of enforcing such strict policies sounds extreme, even with the most disciplined of people, let alone criminals with temper issues. But that comes with the pulpy territory: you must suspend this bit of disbelief to buy into the show’s concept.
It also helps that the series shows you instances of muscle power being used to force stalkers into taking this premium subscription plan. All of this takes time and patience to get used to, but once you do, there’s pleasure to be experienced in the way these cases unravel and in the way Bobby-Sanjay’s screenplay makes you wait to see how they’re connected. It’s also fair game in any series with this anthology-like structure to feel more invested in one story over the rest. In Eyes, this is the two-episode arc allotted to the complex interpersonal dynamics between a young IAS officer named Sajin and his wife Shobita, played by Dev Mohan and Saniya Iyappan respectively. If the remaining cases are painted in obvious shades of black and white, this particular subplot does not allow you to pick a side.
The Eyes team, too, feels the same confusion as they try to distinguish between victim and perpetrator. The show also makes good use of the Rashomon effect to show you the same incidents through Sajin and Shobita’s perspectives. And yet, it’s some of the other narrative choices that let the show down. Most episodes follow a similar pattern, with a character agreeing to plunge too readily into elaborate flashbacks. These confessions do not require much prodding for a character to reveal secrets they’ve been holding on to for years. You also find a similar lack of finesse in the way the dialogues have been written. When they’re not written around the need to work as exposition, these lines feel dated, as though they’re from a movie made 15 years ago.
Another reason we feel disconnected from certain episodes is the rigmarole, a case in point being a giant sequence involving the Rorschach test. Despite the show’s exploration of mental health, we struggle to find a valid connection between the test and what it says about the characters asked to take it. The same goes for a jarring sequence in which a character refers to a book about Sigmund Freud, just because he can. Aside from sounding like interesting footnotes that came up during research, we don’t get a convincing reason why they made it into the show in the first place.
But it’s when we decide to disregard the show’s self-seriousness that it begins to become fun again. A hilariously trashy performance by the actor who plays Abhiram, an awkward proposal scene featuring Ayesha (Nikhila Vimal), and predictable diversions in the screenplay further add to the show’s campy feel. So when it allots due importance to a subplot featuring actor Idukki Jaffer, the show comes alive again, and we revel in its pulpiness. The connections between various characters begin to click into place in surprising ways, and we also begin to care for the core team of Eyes.
By urging us to buy into an implausible concept and then following it up with a set of interesting characters and subplots, the series has a way of sneaking up on you, even if you do not see eye to eye with it on most matters.