Kafas Review: Kafas is a social drama TV series created by Subhash Kapoor, directed by Sahil Sangha and written by Karan Sharma with music by Pranaay. The series stars Sharman Joshi, Mona Singh, Vivan Bhathena, Mikhail Gandhi, Tejasvi Singh Ahlawat, Zarina Wahab, Mona Vasu, and Preeti Jhangiani in pivotal roles. Kafas season 1 has 6 episodes, each with a run time of around 35 minutes.
– Kafas Review Does Not Contain Spoilers –
Kafas Plot
Kafas follows a family’s journey for truth and freedom as they come face-to-face with a shocking reality when their youngest son comes across a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that changes all of their lives forever. Faced with a difficult situation, the parents try their best to protect their children, but their own biases come into play that threatens to break them apart forever.
Kafas Review
The social drama starts off in quite a thrilling manner, wherein you are left to wonder whether or not Sunny finds justice and some sort of solace through a very difficult situation. The series, whose false opening will leave you shocked, runs along gently with the crime in the background as we see a family falling apart at the seams and wondering whether there were any seams, to begin with here.
Sunny’s family, comprising of parents Seema and Raghav, and sister Shreya, is quite a normal family from the outside. However, the more we dig deeper, the family’s secrets themselves are quite shocking and disturbing, to say the least. The newest addition to an already odd family just exasperates this, and the audience is left to wonder how the family even made it this far.
Kafas does a good job bringing us a family under duress, crumbling under pressure from an unfair system and justice that oftentimes asks too much from the not-so-well-off of society. It strikes a good chord when it shows us the fear and desperation in the parents’ eyes, unsure of where to go from there and wondering whether they are doing the right thing. It also, however, shows us parents who aren’t black and white. These grey characters, in spite of loving and wanting the best for their children, let their own biases and greed creep into their decision-making, poisoning everything that it touches.
I liked the family drama aspect of it. The anticipation of what the next move will be, wondering whether anyone will truly stand up for Sunny and do the right thing. The waiting is the best part of the series, the slow-burn buildup of anticipation is great, and I was genuinely invested in the series during these moments. Will Sunny face his fear? What happens after? Will the parents protect him?
However, in a bid to create grey characters who are driven by their own desires, Kafas creates a set of parents who are just unbelievably bad. Although Sunny is the protagonist in the series, his parents, played by Sharman Joshi and Mona Singh, drive the decisions that ultimately drive the show forward. They are just difficult to sit through and watch as they make the worst decisions out there. Like, honestly, I understand being human and making mistakes, but the series shows these characters as being unable to keep their children at the front of their minds for a second.
It’s these moments that ultimately make the series bitter to watch. It’s annoying watching them make so many mistakes one after another. And it’s not like they only hurt their children, but they also constantly hurt each other in the process as well. And the weirdest thing is that they don’t even face any consequences for their actions. The last episode is probably my biggest gripe with the series. Instead of showing a believable consequence, things just… work out for the parents who basically took a bribe at the expense of their children’s mental health.
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Anyway, Kafas is able to hold on to our interests till the last moment in spite of me hating the parents and judging their decision-making capabilities. There are some good moments that are quite thrilling, but the lack of any consequence and delivering a swift and easy resolution really brings down the watchability factor by quite a notch. I also felt that the last dramatic scene was too much, and the direction in which it went felt too much.
Either way, the leads play their roles well, and Joshi and Singh are believable parents whose selfishness and selflessness fash in their eyes sometime or other. Vivan Bhatena and Preeti Jhangiani play Vikram and Tanya, and Bhatena does a pretty great job at being unlikeable but switching that off like it’s no big deal. I also feel like this antagonism came out in the most poetic way possible – just wish that the resolution was a bit less dramatic.
Kafas Review: Final Thoughts
In the end, my point is, if you’re going to use your kids to get rich, at least provide them with a therapist so that they can at least try to get over the trauma in their lives.
Kafas is streaming on SonyLIV.
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