Prime Video has debuted the first trailer for its upcoming Indian series Hush Hush, which stands out amid the clutter for featuring a cast and crew led by women. 90s Bollywood star Juhi Chawla leads a stacked cast; she plays a woman who finds herself embroiled in a grave criminal investigation along with her friends.
The trailer paints a rather somber picture of the show. The lives of a handful of upper-class women unravel when they become the prime suspects in a police investigation; it's unclear what the crime is, although everything points to murder. As the skeletons come tumbling out of the closet and the walls close in, the women find that they have nobody to rely on for support but each other. Chawla is joined by Ayesha Jhulka, Soha Ali Khan Pataudi, Kritika Kamra, and Shahana Goswami. Karishma Tanna stars as the investigator in charge of the case.
“I hope your silence to protect yourselves doesn’t mean what I think it does,” says Tanna’s cop in Hindi, as a sense of paranoia builds in the background, over shots of a dead body, a crime scene, and an intense confrontation. Hush Hush appears to be tackling not just the patriarchal mindset prevalent in Indian society, but also the inherent class divide that informs the lives of the majority of the country’s significant population.
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The women behind the camera include directors Tanuja Chandra and Kopal Naithani, and writers Juhi Chaturvedi and Shikhaa Sharma. Various department heads, Prime Video said, are also women. Aparna Purohit, Head of India Originals, Prime Video said:
“Women are 50% of the population, yet stories told by them and from their perspective are far and few in between. At Prime Video, we are committed to giving a global platform to diverse, authentic and relatable female stories, and with Hush Hush, we are taking our commitment to female-forward narratives a step further. Hush Hush is an emotional and intriguing story with nuanced, flawed and complex women who light up the screen. We are thrilled to join hands with Abundantia Entertainment once again to create a story that amplifies female voices in both reel and real life!”
Hush Hush is the latest entry in a growing list of streaming projects that have enabled the return of older female actors. In India, for the longest time, women were treated as expendable in mainstream films. To an extent, many are still restricted to thankless roles, and replaced by younger female actors opposite male stars who simply do not acknowledge their age. Performers such as Shefali Shah (Delhi Crime), Pooja Bhatt (Bombay Begums) and Raveena Tandon (Aranyak) all delivered some of their most acclaimed work when they moved to streaming. Earlier this year, Chawla appeared in a supporting role in the Prime Video romantic comedy Sharmaji Namkeen, while Shah returned to star in the recently released second season of Netflix's Delhi Crime.
Hush Hush will be released on September 22. You can watch the trailer here, and read the show’s official synopsis down below:
Hush Hush revolves around a set of women whose picture-perfect lives begin to come undone when an unexpected event brings to the fore secrets from their past and threatens everything that’s dear to them. Knitted in a web of lies, deceit and fighting patriarchy, the story explores the storm that brews behind the seemingly quiet façade of the privileged lives of these women.