Accused: Anubhuti Kashyap makes a film about harassment, but doesn’t know what it is. That explains Bollywood

Geetika is unkind, mean and overall a terrible person, but the film believes that the men in this universe have a problem with her because she is a woman

Anubhuti Kashyap’s Accused needs a POSH seminar

Accused does not understand what constitutes as harassment, and they definitely need a POSH semiar for the same. It is baffling that the executives at Netflix and Dharmatic, and the filmmaker herself along with writers Sima Agarwal and Yash Keswani, do not understand that when a boss is taking advantage of their position and are in a relationship with a junior, it is a misuse of power; and when the said junior is asked to resign, it is a sign of systemic failure. And all of this is harassment.

The boss does not need any protection here and they certainly don’t deserve a promotion, they are the predators who must be eliminated from the system but the film does not understand that. Geetika’s misuse of power isn’t just limited to this, she believes she is well within her rights to humiliate a junior in a public place and the film completely believes that she is licensed to do so because she is an “excellent” doctor. The film tells us that 50 percent of employees working under her have quit because she has a “unique” way of working, which is code for being a toxic boss, but the hospital has been ignoring it for years because her department brings in the most amount of money.

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As soon as Geetika is accused of being a “sexual predator”, the film jumps into action in trying to find out who could have “wrongly accused” her. No time is spent on actually pondering if Geetika could actually be a predator, even though the signs are all over the place. Multiple detectives jump in, as the film continues to throw new characters at us who don’t contribute much. It is questionable that a film about harassment has been made like a mystery thriller, and it is even more questionable that we are presented with red herrings who could have done this to ‘malign’ Geetika’s image, as if she is a saint.

Konkona Sensharma’s Geetika comes across as a manipulative, pathological liar

In the midst of all of this, we also find out about the marital discord between Geetika and Meera (Pratibha Rannta), which makes you question Geetika’s character even more as she is clearly pulling the strings in this relationship, whilst also cheating on her wife. You can’t help but be convinced that Geetika is a pathological liar who has been manipulating her much younger wife for a while, making this another case of grooming. Imagine the power Geetika holds if Meera blindly accepts that burnt chilli garlic noodles mixed with aloo bhindi is a good food combination!

You can’t help but be concerned for Pratibha Rannta’s Meera as she shares her life with a seemingly manipulative person.

You can convince yourself that perhaps, Accused wants to present a character with grey shades but then you are at a loss when you wonder why they would want to defend someone whose morals are objectively dubious. Even after presenting a character who is in some serious need of counselling on how to conduct themselves at the workplace, the film rewards her by giving her a promotion as she launches into a monologue about how her actions wouldn’t be seen as questionable if she were a man. It comes across as silly and amateurish when the protagonist decides to punish herself in the last three minutes of the film, while her colleagues continue to pat her on the back.

It is shocking that in the last eight years (since #MeToo), the Indian film industry hasn’t made many films about the movement, aside from the brilliant Aattam. And when they decide to make something that is remotely in the vicinity, they come up with the likes of Section 375 and Accused!