The Night Manager Review: Aditya Roy Kapur Shines In A Promising Adaptation That Needs To Get Sexier
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The Night Manager, an official adaptation of British author John Le Carré’s eponymous book, is an espionage thriller that requires you to check your expectations before checking in. A mostly linear story and plot, it isn’t so much about shocking twists and turns and oodles of action, as it is about human behaviour and relationships between the people in such situations. To put it bluntly, it is thoda thanda, kaafi slow burn, and mostly works because it is sexy. The first screen adaptation of the novel, by Sussane Bier, garnered acclaim for its nuanced characterisations, stylised treatment, and performances by Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, Elizabeth Debicki, and Olivia Colman. One of the biggest challenges for Sandeep Modi’s Indian adaptation on Disney+ Hotstar, starring Aditya Roy Kapur, Anil Kapoor, Sobhita Dhulipala, and Tillotama Shome, is to make tweaks that would heighten its appeal for an Indian audience that might find the OG a bit bland.
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Created by Sandeep Modi (who has previously co-created Sushmita Sen starrer Aarya), The Night Manager is directed by Modi, along with Priyanka Ghose, with writing credits given to David Farr, who had adapted the novel for the 2016 miniseries. It also stars Saswata Chatterjee, Ravi Behl, and Rukhsar Rehman.
Plot
Shaan Sengupta, a former Indian Navy lieutenant, is the Night Manager at a lavish hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh. After a chance encounter turns his life upside down, he finds himself propelled into the world of espionage. His mark? An international businessman, Shelly Rungta, is suspected by RAW agent Lipika Saikia Rao of being a powerful arms dealer with a lot of blood on his hands. Lipika convinces Shaan to be her undercover operative and manages to indict him into Shelly’s inner circle. However, getting in is only the beginning. Shaan must gain Shelly’s trust, while dodging the constant scrutiny from Shelly’s friend Brij aka BJ. Then there’s also Kaveri, Shelly’s girlfriend and a beautiful distraction that might just cause all of Shaan’s plans to explode. Meanwhile, Lipika has her own challenges: Keeping the operation a secret and finding out who on her team is on Shelly’s payroll.
The Night Manager is an almost exact and decent adaptation of the original but lacks the sex appeal
While the miniseries is set first in Egypt and Switzerland, then Spain, and also in London, The Night Manager adapts to the current times and nationality quite well. The Rohingya crisis forms the geopolitical backdrop of this story, with Shaan’s first stationing being in Dhaka. While still shot across beautiful locales, the series swaps Zermatt for Shimla, and Spain for Sri Lanka. The character that pulls the night manager Shaan into this mess is a lot younger, and therefore, there’s no romantic involvement, unlike the British counterpart. And if the cast interviews are any indication, we won’t be getting a #Hiddlesbum scene either. Safe to say, the miniseries was definitely sexier than the Indian adaptation.
That being said, the makers have left no stone unturned to adapt the vibe and feel for the Indian audience. Everything from Shelly’s luxurious Sri Lankan villa by the beach and the sexism that Lipika faces in office vs the support she receives from the men in her life, to showing just how good Shaan is with children are great tweaks to the story. What they’ve retained as is from the original, also works. The scene where Shelly’s son Taha gets kidnapped is almost identical, right up to the setting of the restaurant and minor details. In fact, it is this scene that made me go back and check on just how much alike the two series are.
The biggest tweak that The Night Manager makes is perhaps the splitting of the miniseries into two parts. The original was a single six-episode stretch, tightly packed. But our Night Manager is legit working in shifts. Part one is four episodes, that almost follow the trajectory of the original in terms of plot. While the makers maintain that the show will hold its own in terms of plot and character arcs, the British original actually spent almost half an episode establishing the backstory of Jonathan Pine’s alias Thomas Quince, compared to the Indian one, which wrapped it up in a montage and still ended in six episodes. I am quite curious how the Indian Night Manager manages to stretch the plot for four more episodes without dragging it.
The Casting And Performances, Particularly From Aditya Roy Kapur and Saswata Chatterjee, Are The Biggest Standouts
Another prominent change is in the protagonist’s demeanour itself and the overall sex appeal of the series. The former, I am okay with. The latter… not so much! Hiddleston’s Jonathan Pine was a slick and sexy gentleman who’d smile a lot and could crack a witty line or two. He gets around with women a lot. And though a soldier and an outsider, he looks like he could easily fit into this world of spies and rich dirty men. Aditya Roy Kapur’s Shaan Sengupta is a touch more genteel and looks like someone who’d be kept up at night by his demons, tempting him to take up gigs like the night manager, or even dalliances with danger like this RAW operation. If anything, and I’m surprised I’m saying this, but ARK looks more convincing as a normie soldier who got pulled into espionage without much training because Hiddleston just always looked like he knew what he was doing.
At the trailer launch, everyone, including Anil Kapoor, hyped up Aditya’s performance and I cannot wait to see what more is coming. What I see so far is mighty promising.
Also Read: ‘Koffee With Karan’ S7: Ananya Panday Confesses She Finds Aditya Roy Kapur Hot. Same, Sis!
Anil Kapoor is perfect casting as businessman/ruthless arms dealer and family man Shelly Rungta, in that he doesn’t try to imitate what Hugh Laurie brought to his subtly sinister Richard Roper. Instead, Kapoor plays to his strengths with his usual panache. In fact, there’s a sneaky reference to his Dil Dhadakne Do proclamation too, in a similar dinner table scene, where one of the characters calls Shelly the ‘King Of The World’.
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I like that the characters don’t feel like hollow reflections of the British original. It’s easy to feel for the good guys, and hate the bad ones. But thankfully, the performances make you feel for the bad guys too. Saswata Chatterjee’s BJ is a riot and a regular scene stealer. He even gets the best lines! Tillotama Shome—always such a delight to watch her bring characters to life, bless her—brings her own quirks to Lipika and makes you instantly want to root for her. Ravi Behl, seen on screen are a long, long time, holds his own. The character which still hasn’t opened her cards up yet is Sobhita Dhulipala’s Kaveri and there’s little remarkable about her to write home for now. Elizabeth Debicki’s Jed was one of my favourite characters from the original, equal parts melancholic and heartbreakingly sexy, and a hard one to write over. I guess I’ll hold off until the second half. Knowing Sobhita, I have expectations.
And perhaps, this right here is my biggest problem with The Night Manager. The shift has barely begun, and the four episodes we’ve gotten so far are merely laying the groundwork for when the real action begins, which we won’t see until June. I understand the creative decision to split the series into two, to retain the mystery of a show that’s already sparse on it, thereby giving both the new and old audiences something to look forward to. But four episodes, minus the sex appeal of the original, feel too long to be spent on a prologue. It leaves the audience with zero stakes to get hyped about and feels almost bland and unexciting if you don’t know what’s going to happen. If anything, your knowledge of the original might just be the thing that keeps you hooked on, to see how they do it compared to how the Sussane Biers did it.
Also Read: What To Watch This Week Of February 13 To 19: The Night Manager, Ant-Man, The Romantics And More!
Verdict
I hope it gets sexier in the next four episodes because it would be a criminal waste of Aditya Roy Kapur and Sobhita Dhulipala’s chemistry and that stunning location. And I reiterate, this story, or most espionage thrillers really, are nothing without that innate, clandestine sexiness that elevates them from simple, often bland and linear, spy stories. From the rushes of the second half, it does look like working for the bad guy will give us the ARK sexiness that we are dying to see. So fingers crossed!
The Night Manager, both the series and the actor who plays him, greets you with a lot of promise when you check in. The characters are interesting, the performances are good, and the adaptation to Indian sensibilities is decent (IMO, perhaps a bit too safe). The decision to split the series into two parts is a gamble. But considering the sex appeal isn’t exactly oozing through and the stakes don’t feel high enough yet to grip the audience iron-tight, I am not sure if what we have is enough to judge this book by its prologue just yet. I will be holding out until it’s check-out time to judge if that worked for me. For now, Aditya Roy Kapur’s Night Manager has me mildly hooked.
The Night Manager, produced by The Ink Factory and Banijay Asia, is currently streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
First Published: February 17, 2023 11:33 AM
