Paatal Lok creator Sudip Sharma says whodunnits are done to death: 'That genre died with Agatha Christie' | Interview
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The whodunnit is perhaps the most explored genre in crime. For decades, crime thrillers have regaled audiences across languages, countries, and cultures. People feel a good murder mystery is timeless. But over the years, murder mysteries have become more complex. First it was with the introduction of twists and later with socio-political layers. Today, a murder myster is often a coming-of-age tale, as Prime Video ’s soon-to-release movie, Babita Singh Reporting is. In a chat with Hindustan Times, executive producer Sudip Sharma talks about the movie and the genre at large.
Adding to this, Sudip Sharma talks about Babita Singh Reporting. Sudip Sharma on Babita Singh Reporting Babita Singh Reporting stars Nimisha Sajayan as a suspended, underconfident police officer in Madhya Pradesh who stumbles upon a murder investigation while visiting her in-laws. The movie is as much about finding the killer as it is about finding Babita and her true self. Talking about this approach, Sudip Sharma says, “Whodunnit, as a genre, has been done to death by a lot of people, including some in the room. If you still want to do a whodunnit, you need to find a fresher take, some nuance in it. That’s true for any genre that you have explored with a certain amount of frequency.”
Meanwhile, Sudip, best known for creating Paatal Lok , adds that Babita Singh Reporting provides that freshness. “That is what I found exciting about this movie that although it is a story about an investigation, there is a lot more to it. In some ways, the investigation becomes a conduit in her own search for herself,” he adds.
Notably, Babita Singh Reporting is a movie that places the reveal of the mystery secondary to the protagonist’s own journey. Sudip adds that he prefers films that do this. “It’s never about the reveal. Personally, those are not the stories that resonate where it’s about ‘I could never guess who the killer is’. That genre is long gone. It died with Agatha Christie. Now, it’s really about the things that one discovers on the journey, and the larger spotlight that you can draw on the story.” He cautions that one cannot disregard the reveal completely, but also not be caught up in it. “You still need to give a satisfying reveal because that is the promise of the genre. But that cannot be the only promise of the movie,” he adds.
As per the latest buzz, Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism. Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Movie Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day. Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world. Read More
Source: Hindustan Times