The Game You Never Play Alone

THE GAME: YOU NEVER PLAY ALONE is ominous not only in its title but also in its inaugural stature as Netflix India’s first Tamil original of the year. So far, Netflix has mostly dabbled in anthologies in Tamil; web series are a rarity. The world of web series is slow to take off in South India owing to factors like budget constraints, the scepticism about streaming within the film industries, and operational reasons from writing to production. It’s still at a nascent stage, even as OTT platforms introduce new series in several south Indian languages, and streaming itself is undergoing a churn in how it is viewed and operated. At this time comes The Game, a Tamil series starring Shraddha Srinath and Santhosh Prathap, written by Deepthi Govindarajan and directed by Rajesh M Selva. It takes long form’s trusted entry-level genre — thriller — and encapsulates it within a game developer’s world where digital objects become as much of a minefield as real life.