Hi Friends,
SUNFLOWER is the latest murder mystery and comedy built into a web series on the ZEE5 Online Platform featuring Sunil Grover as Sonu Singh who lives in a society in Mumbai where murder happens and all the tenets, maids, guards etc are seemed to be the suspects for the same. Sonu is also living in one of the houses where the murder of Mr Raj Kapoor played by Ashwin Kaushal takes place. The suspects are basically Mr Ahuja played by Mukul Chadha and Sonu Singh. Mrs Ahuja is played by Radha Bhatt and the interactions between them are the most amazing part of this web series as they cover their tracks of murder as they were shown doing something which was going to kill Raj Kapoor. They had a regular fight for a number of reasons like Kapoor parking his Mercedes in Ahuja's parking lot and also Kapoor playing Table Tennis on the wall while Ahuja is making love with his wife. I think the character of Mr Ahuja whose first name is not known and the same goes for Mrs Ahuja too is more of a psychopath who sees good in scratching the car of Mr Kapoor. But the actor looks more irritated, tired and doesn't convince you as a psychopath whom you are afraid to go in front of as a Professor. Beard won't make you look and act like the Professor in Money Heist if the character is inspired by the web series.
As it happens in so many building societies based web series or TV serials, this one also has a lot of fights and love between various tenets and owners living in the society. This one has a lot of comedy sequences where everyone has to go through some kind of interview process and admission form to stay in the society in the backdrop of the election being held for Chairman of the Sunflower Society. There are two candidates who want to stand for the same - one is our main actor Sonu Singh and another one is Dilip Iyer played by Ashish Vidyarthi. Ashish is central to the moral police they have in their society while her own daughter is not following the steps he wants her to follow. As shown in several other serials, the building will contain all kinds of tenets and they will have their own kind of behaviour and selfish intents - this web series too focussed on many of those and the age-old thinking affecting us in the modern world. It's a great direction by Vikas Bahl to retouch those small peculiarities of the society in a nice way so that people can think about the same. It's like watching Queen movie but on a different topic.
Sonu Singh also has some hidden agenda which was showcased in the last two episodes but the conclusive end of murder is not shown as the story is left hanging for the next season if it arrives. Raj Kapoor's wife had an affair with his younger brother played by Shonali Nagrani and Arav Chowdharry. Then there are the police guys investigating the murder as DG played by Ranvir Shorey and Girish Kulkarni as Chetan Tambe. There are a lot of girls whom Sonu wants to impress in society and at his workplace too played by Saloni Khanna, Pallavi Das, Dayana Erappa, Ria Nalavade and Simran Nerurkar.
A lot of focus is given to the day to day lifestyle of Sonu Singh where he spends a lot of time talking to tele-callers in the evening calling him for some kind of Credit card, Data SIM or various other insurance products. Basically, it's shown he doesn't have a lot of friends and talks to his mom three times a day. He orders food from various eateries especially Chinese noodles and also is fully organised. He even keeps his doormat in a certain order matching the line of the flooring. He befriends some of the girls from the office and his neighbours from the opposite door and keeps cracking these PJs from time to time. Guthi reference does come up once or twice in the show but Suni Grover is nothing unless he is accompanied by Kapil Sharma. Together they are awesome and separated they are not something people will enjoy.
Sonu Singh as showcased in the 8 episodes is shown as a loving cute character by everyone and his good side is shown so far but there can be a real psychopath building up who loses his girlfriend due to Mr Raj Kapoor's influence as she used to work for her and he convinced her to marry someone else. Sonu follows strict principles in his day to day lifestyle and says that no sex before marriage. He is a top employee at his previous job as well as the current one at Ladies Makeup manufacturing company. The best scene is when he tries to take his trouser back from the office boy in the conference room. There are some funny moments in the story with a lot of adult angle also imbibed in the web series. Ranvir Shorey has made his character of Inspector DG interesting. Girish Kulkarni seems to be a real police guy with the mannerism he has in certain of his characters played in various web series.
In the end, it's a combination of a lot of different stories happening in each and every person related to the Sunflower society where a murder mystery is being solved by the viewers as well as the police. There is the removal of evidence - incidental or intentional which have not followed the police protocol to come to a conclusion which is showed as Sonu Singh to be behind the murder of Mr Raj Kapoor but whether he is a murderer or not will be shown until there is a season 2 of the Sunflower on ZEE5 platform. This is something intentional that the director and Reliance Entertainment has done to its viewers as the story is not closed after 8 episodes. Watch it if you are a fan of Sunil Grover who in several scenes tries to copy Shahrukh Khan's character of Surinder Sahni from Rab Ne Bana De Jodi keeping his face shut while smiling etc. RATING - 3/5