Jyotika (as a stenographer) and Sonakshi Sinha (as a lawyer) play unlikely friends who become partners in solving cases (or rather, they’re courtroom partners who become unlikely friends). This rich/poor relationship works, but the drama that plays out as cases are being argued is generic and does not generate the excitement this story demands, especially after an unexpected personal angle kicks in. That’s the quick review. A longer analysis follows, and it may contain spoilers.
Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s blandly titled System opens with a statement on the, well, System. A man is being thrown into jail. We are told that it does not matter whether he is actually guilty of the crime he is convicted of. What matters is whether his innocence can be proved. We see this man through the bars of his cell. As he moves into the cell, he becomes an out-of-focus blur, but the bars in the foreground stay as sharp and solid as ever. Men will come and go, but the System is what it is. And the plot that follows is based on a terrific idea. We are used to stories about how the rich and the powerful manipulate the System. And we see one such man, a top lawyer named Ravi Rajvansh (Ashutosh Gowariker), as the media questions him about a big shot he has freed in a land-grabbing case. But, really, the System can be manipulated by anyone who knows it well enough, whichever rung of society they belong to.
Sonakshi Sinha plays Ravi Rajvansh’s daughter, Neha. She is a lawyer, too, but a public prosecutor. In what she calls reverse nepotism, her father won’t let her join his firm unless she proves her worth by winning a few cases on her own. The other major player in this drama is a court stenographer named Sarika (Jyotika). Neha and Sarika run into each other in the dirty washroom of a courthouse. Sarika, who lives in a chawl, is used to these facilities, but Neha, who lives in her father’s mansion, complains about the lack of soap and the filthy conditions. Neha wears expensive clothes in neutral shades. Sarika wears colourful, inexpensive salwar kameez-es. The two women, eventually, strike up a friendship that begins as a business transaction. Sarika has information that can help Neha win cases. Neha has money that can help Sarika, who lives with her wheelchair-bound husband and a daughter that she has big dreams for.
This friendship is the best part of System. Sonakshi and Jyotika work very well together, and we see two women with their own struggles. Even their sex lives are somewhat similar. These are not exactly relationships, but ways of using and being used. Both actors do as much with the lines as with the silent passages, and it’s nice to see Jyotika in roles that are not inhibited by the unwritten laws of Tamil cinema when it comes to what women can do on screen. System plays with this friendship, inside the courtroom and outside. Inside, Neha and Sarika are conspirators. They are two women manipulating the System in order to win cases. And outside the courtroom, they are friends across class lines. They love and respect each other as human beings and as women who have to be breadwinners. Neha may not have a homebound husband in a wheelchair, but she has to build her career on her own, brick by brick.
But the courtroom proceedings are not written with the same level of detail. Neha’s cases are won a tad too easily, and she does not come across as someone who can do things on her own. She is always getting help. The big case is a father-versus-daughter showdown in court. And even here, the drama is not exploited satisfactorily. I appreciated the attempts to keep things subtle and not resort to courtroom cliches, but this is the other end of the spectrum, where there’s no juice. And when System turns into a revenge story, the writing really falls apart. The plotting is very generic. I liked the idea that the System can be exploited by anyone, but this idea never turns into a compelling case. It’s nice to see two female actors get a good showcase and a scene between them, set on a terrace, has some sting, but on the whole, System needed to be a lot more.
