‘Loser 2’ web series review: High on emotional drama

Most sports dramas narrating the story of an underdog stop at the winning moment. What happens thereafter? Season 2 of the Telugu web series Loser, streaming on Zee5, begins soon after air rifle shooter Suri Yadav (Priyadarshi Pulikonda) wins the national championship. It shows us if Suri’s life changes for the better and whether he can retain his success. The other former players — Ruby (Kalpika Ganesh) and Wilson (Shashank) — he had crossed paths with earlier, have their past demons to defeat and find a new purpose in life. Eventually, Suri too has to rediscover his purpose.

Also Read | Get ‘First Day First Show’, our weekly newsletter from the world of cinema, in your inbox . You can subscribe for free here

This eight-episode season is not high on sporting action. When a sport is played, it comes at crucial moments and is effective in pushing the drama forward. Loser 2 is more of an emotional drama. Director Abhilash Reddy takes his time to build the momentum and explore different aspects of the story he has co-written with Sai Bharadwaj and Shravan Madala.

The non-linear pattern continues in this season, with the stories shifting between the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s to probe deeper into what shapes the principal characters.

The first few episodes detail the crushing reality faced by Suri and several former champions. An air rifle shooter doesn’t get a rousing welcome in his hometown. He approaches a newspaper office, introduces himself and narrates his journey, only to see it published as a snippet three days later. The national win earns him a clerical job; again, no one congratulates or welcomes him.

The scene in which a colleague points out how many former champions the office has employed and how they have all resigned to the obscurity of pushing files is a telling reality of the fate of sportspersons in the absence of financial support to further their sporting careers. As Suri gets to know about his colleagues, Naresh Ramadurai’s camera moves up to give us an overview of the situation and how all of them end up lost in a crowd.

The first few episodes are deliberately paced but stay with it, for it comes together into a moving drama as it progresses. While Suri, despite all his patience and intent to work towards better sporting glory, gets disgusted by his surroundings and begins to seek money and therefore power, Ruby has enough challenges on her plate.

Adding complexity, this season introduces Maya (Dhanya Balakrishna) who knows what it takes to survive in the world of advertising. She is good in portraying the character that is partly street smart and partly opportunistic, but many a time unreadable — deliberately so.

Meanwhile, Ruby’s journey is about rising above stifling patriarchy as much as it is about sports. Years after the threat of sexual abuse ended her badminton dreams, she deals with marital rape. She wills herself to take a move that might be frowned upon by her conservative Muslim parents. When a turnaround happens, it drives home sharp truths through lines such as: ‘If you had lingered a few seconds after asking ‘how am I’, I would have opened up and cried; if you had looked into my eyes a few seconds longer while serving me food, I would have broken down…’

Priyadarshi and Kalpika Ganesh play Suri and Ruby respectively with skill and a lot of empathy. In a scene when a character asks Suri, ‘do you even look like a champion,’ it makes him realise how it isn’t enough to toil and win. Priyadarshi can play an underdog, everyday man as well as transform into a suave, nouveau rich sportsman with elan. This is another good performance from him, proving that he is dependable.

Kalpika plays Ruby stoically and in many places, lets her body language do the talking. The sequence where she is tested in her badminton abilities in front of school kids stands out in this season.

The third ‘loser’, so to speak, is Wilson. Now content with being a sports educator in a school, he finds a renewed purpose when his teenage son John (Harshith) wants to be a bowler. This part of the story explores how nepotism works only from a space of privilege. The talented teenager has inherited his father’s temperament and his competitor on the pitch is a reminder of an old foe of the family. Harshith is impressive as a youngster raring to go, torn between his love for his father and having to deal with the reminders of the past. Shashank is adequate as Wilson.

The effectiveness of Loser 2 also stems from the fact that its writing does not dismiss supporting characters as bystanders. There are smaller story arcs for several characters. Ravi Varma as coach Ravinder, Abhay Betiganti as Suri’s childhood friend, Gayathri Bhargavi as Ruby’s teacher, Shayaji Shinde and Satyaprakash as parents, Annie as the younger Ruby, and several others make their presence felt in their limited time.

As the story moves back and forth, the colour palette and visual tonality go through a shift, aptly complemented by Manisha Dutt’s production design and Sriram Maddury’s music.

If there’s a bone to pick, it has to do with less sporting action. With all its focus on the emotional journeys of the characters, we don’t see enough of sport. But perhaps, this season is meant to build up momentum for season three, the finale, where each of the players has their task cut out.

(Loser 2 streams on Zee5)