Killer Soup review: A tragedy of errors

To say that it’s an absolute joy to watch Konkona Sen Sharma and Manoj Bajpayee riff off of each other in a madcap, bizarre crime thriller in which anything is possible would be a gross understatement. Being able to witness the delicious, delirious concoction of their unmatched wizardry feels like a rare privilege. So much so it begets my asking right at the outset—why did it take the Hindi film industry so long to bring them together?

Such is the power of performances. Put together a solid cast at the heart of the goings on no matter how ruddy or ridiculous, they will turn any grim graveyard into an iridescent carnival and take you on rides dizzying and unexpected. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. More on this later.

Set in a wet hill station called Mainjur somewhere in Tamil Nadu, Killer Soup is the story of Swathi Shetty (Konkona Sen Sharma), an ignored, invisible housewife with appalling cooking skills who would stop at nothing to achieve her dream of having her restaurant. Throw into the mix her horrid, obnoxious husband Prabhakar aka Prabhu Shetty (Manoj Bajpayee), a failed businessman, his wealthy drug-lord brother Arvind Shetty (Sayaji Shinde), Arvind’s daughter Apu (Anula Navleker), and her loyal bodyguard Lucas (Laal). On the offside, there’s Swathi’s paramour Umesh (also played by Manoj Bajpayee), her docile partner-in-crime who bears a striking resemblance to Prabhu.

One rainy night, someone gets accidentally killed, plans are hatched, false identities are assumed, there’s another fortuitous death, more plotting, blackmailing, a money-laundering scandal surfaces, someone falls off a cliff, a half-conscious man throws acid on his face, teen cousins kiss, a girl unintentionally shoots her father, another character falls to death in an under-construction site, the local police gets involved, and so the soup thickens.

Although packaged as a dark comedy, Killer Soup is more of a pulpy police procedural. Through the bloody, sprawling eight episodes, it’s Swathi and Umesh desperately trying to stay afloat in murky, uncharted waters, fully aware that they can’t swim. Directed by Abhishek Chaubey, it’s a clever commentary on how women are penalised for wanting more and how female ambition is the biggest offence of them all, oftentimes punished by humiliation, ostracisation, and sometimes, even death. Swathi’s single-minded, almost pathetic need for respect and social stature will remind you of Sobhita Dhulipala’s Tara Khanna from Made in Heaven and Tillotama Shome’s Lata Solanki from Delhi Crime 2 (2022).

Written and created by Unaiza Merchant, Anant Tripathi, Harshad Nalawade, and Abhishek Chaubey, Killer Soup has a deep love for the gory, the supernatural, and the absurd. There is an abundance of graphic imagery such as a dead deer being disembowelled, uncomfortable close-ups of half-burnt faces, people eating, charred skeletons, and broken necks and popped eyes of enemies decimated.

As for the paranormal, there’s a dubious, grubby-looking female Khansama, Sawthi’s cooking teacher, who could give the evil witches of bedtime stories a run for their money. A crucial track of the show has a lumbering, about-to-retire Inspector Hassan (Nassar) being guided by the ghost of a poetry-loving, assiduous new, young colleague ASI Thupalli (Anbuthasan), who unwittingly dies mid-investigation. Every time Hassan hits a dead end, Thupalli’s ghost appears—always washed in an eerie otherworldly light, always wearing a yellow raincoat, fully drenched, with water dripping all around him. Yes, this is how whacky this series is. Just when you think it cannot get more ludicrous, be sure that it will.

I like how Killer Soup uses language. All the characters talk in English, Hindi, and Tamil, flitting between the three as comfortably as one moves about in their bedroom. Their vocabulary and diction have a lived-in, easy quality about it. I also like how, unlike films such as Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui (2021) and Meenakshi Sundareshwar (2021), Killer Soup doesn’t tokenize the socio-cultural milieu it is set in. Sure, there are sweeping shots of tea/coffee estates, but the show’s world-building is more akin to Ram Madhvani’s Aarya or Sujoy Ghosh’s Jaane Jaan. Atmospheric and appropriate, it hides more than it reveals, accentuating the storytelling, giving the show its peculiar edginess, and setting the stage just right for you to experience the unfathomable.

Although richly dense, Killer Soup isn’t the most tightly knit. It’s a slow burn that gets indulgent and convoluted a little after halftime. The backstabbing, deceits, and one-upping are relentless, someone dies every few minutes, and Swathi’s dream, like a forest firefly, keeps eluding her until she finally coups it—holds it delicately, carefully in her fist. Swathi twirls a little, and squeals in delight under her breath at her hard-won victory. However, just when she opens her fist to exhibit her win to the world, much to her horror, she finds it empty. Inspired by a news headline, the Netflix series is a haunting critique of the unpredictability of life and the ephemerality of victories. As the end credits rolled, Killer Soup made me think of Vasan Bala’s brilliant 2022 film Monica, O My Darling and Guy de Maupassant’s tragic 1884 short story The Necklace.

Even if the storytelling gets uneven, you should watch Killer Soup for its excellent performances. It is not every day that each cast member of a series has such a blast with their character. Even within the show, each of them is performing, pretending to be someone they are not. Umesh is forced to inhabit Prabhu’s identity. Awkward, guilt-laden, and bumbling, Manoj Bajpayee is a hoot in both roles, especially as Umesh pretending to be Prabhu. As Swathi, Konkona is a shape-shifter. She changes colour and credence as if on cue, sometimes more than once within a scene, depending on who she is dealing with and what it is that she wants from them. But for me, it was Sayaji Shinde as the foul-mouthed drug mogul Arvind Shetty that came as the real surprise. He is just terrific as the uncouth, no-nonsense man of the world who cares deeply for his only daughter. Even in an ensemble this meaty, Nassar, Anbuthasan, Anula Navleker, and Laal also manage to make enough room for themselves to not go unnoticed.

Watch out for how the show uses Tu Hi Re, the iconic Hariharan love song from the 1995 Mani Ratnam film Bombay. A central character assumes the moniker Manisha Koirala and does forbidden things wearing a burqa. Foreshadowing much? If only star-crossed lovers cared enough to pay attention.