The Game You Never Play Alone series review: Shraddha Srinath series has promising start but fails to level up in world-building

The Game You Never Play Alone: With sharp moments but weak world-building, it’s a middling yet thought-provoking watch.

The Game review

The Game: You Never Play Alone plot:

Kavya (Shraddha Srinath) along with her husband Anoop (Santhosh Prathap) are game developers working in a company called Moon Bolt. In what can be called a man’s world, Kavya must not only race at the workplace, but also face online trolls and cyberbullying that comes after her in person as well. One such incident leaves her attacked on the night she receives an award. But who is behind all this?

The Game: You Never Play Alone review:

The underlying and recurring theme in The Game: You Never Play Alone (The Game) is misogyny. Be it a workplace that puts a woman in a lower pedestal than her male counterpart, or the sheer ease to pull down the same woman using the technological advancements, or through a mere phone call to show how even she has to adhere to her patriarchal family, even if she is a cop. The Game makes this a central conflict and sets it in the coded world of gaming.

Kavya, a confident and successful game developer, does not have it easy on her plate. Of course, she is financially well-off and doesn’t have to make a case as to why she can work post-marriage. But life isn’t favourable either. Working at a place where her husband’s innovations and strides are taken much seriously than hers, Kavya requires an extra argument to make, while her husband Anoop, has pretty much nothing to raise to have tables turn his way. But it does not mean that her achievements are less cared for. She is given an opportunity to be the next big thing from Moon Bolt, and her projects are given due importance. There is a subtle patriarchy and discrimination overarching her workplace, and we understand it through the course of this seven-episode stretch, which attempts to build a world on the gaming but falls back to certain cliches and baits that these types of stories are often prone to.

Also read: The Game actor Shraddha Srinath: With OTT, you can really milk the character and explore more | EXCLUSIVE

The series gets a few things right, and one among them is how it doesn’t need to spell out many things to explain. For example, Banumathi, a cop who is on top of her things, needs just a phone call to remind her of her place as a woman at home, or even how Kavya’s confidant at the office is not her husband, but her colleague Anne, synergising girl power. The Game in such instances needs very little to convey much, and much credit goes to the staging of these scenes.

But on the downside, the series keeps its premise one-off and not that which has been much explored. The intricacies of the gaming world and what’s what is not explored enough through the episodes, so that anyone new to gaming might seldom make connections to the subplots that are referred. The series had more advantage to capitalise on the world-building, given its long format. But little is made known. Beyond Kavya’s Glass Ceiling, a game in making, Anoop’s much-famous Mask Mayhem, and portions of the dark web that gamers and hackers fiddle with to create conflicts, The Game pretty much rests its case in an underwhelming milieu that is left underexplored. A parallel sub-plot that involves Kavya’s teenage niece Tara getting caught up in the perils of the online world gets entwined with the main storyline, further diluting the opportunities it had to make The Game a truly world-building exercise.

Also read: The Game actor Santhosh Prathap: The games we choose to play reflect our emotions

Much like how video and mobile games act as extensions to vent out frustrations of the real world, in this series too, the games are used to launch attacks on real-life people. The growing social media culture, the access to the dark web, and the gradual loss of in-person conversations to that of being blinded by phone screens are explored in The Game, but not to the fullest. The series also ends on a rather unsolved note, leading to think if binge-watching the series really led up to fruitful returns. A climactic revelation, among the many unanswered questions, also seems to be puerile for a mature adult, even with vengeance to do.

The Game: You Never Play Alone verdict:

The Game takes a unique premise and has plenty of threads to offer. Had the world-building been more on the fore-front, taking the audience into a new milieu, the series would have come out unique within the space of Tamil OTT. Despite some noble writing choices, The Game stumbles at many places, rendering it a middling watch with no big wins.

FAQs

Q. Who are part of The Game: You Never Play Alone cast?

A. Actors Shraddha Srinath, Santhosh Prathap, Chandhini, and Syama Harini are part of The Game: You Never Play Alone.

Q. What is The Game: You Never Play Alone release date?

A. The Game: You Never Play Alone will release on Netflix on October 2.

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