Green Entertainment launched less than a week ago and it is already making waves. Audiences are loving these fresh new stories. Every show gives a totally different flavour with its storytelling. Idiot is their latest show, starring Ahmed Ali Akbar after his star turn and award-winning performance in Parizaad. Mansha Pasha also re-teams with Akbar here after their critically acclaimed film Laal Kabootar in 2019.
While Mansha’s character does not appear in the first episode, audiences have already fallen in love with Ahmed’s character Gulzar. Let’s discuss.
Gulzar, A Kind and Considerate Protagonist in Idiot
Ahmed Ali Akbar won over audiences and critics alike as his portrayal of Parizaad and he’s back at it again with another interesting role. The opening scene is of a dog getting in a car accident and Akbar’s Gulzar rushing it to a hospital and trying to reason with the doctors to help the poor animal.
The dog, Buddy, is used quite well throughout the episode as a simple yet effective writer’s device to set up all the characters by showing us how they treat it. Animal rights, particularly dogs, are not something usually showcased in our stories so seeing this be such a focal point in the story was quite touching and immediately makes you love Gulzar.
This behaviour is seen as odd by his family, and he gets scolded for it a lot in flashbacks. The child actor for Gulzar does a fine job during these scenes but the real standout is Atiqa Odho as his grandmother. She is the only one who understands him and sides with him, much to the dismay of the rest of his family. Odho played that with a lot of heart.
In the present day, Gulzar lives alone with just Buddy as his companion. He is still misunderstood by everyone around him, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. The show perfectly portrays how Gulzar’s sensitivity to social issues is always seen as a negative and why he has isolated himself.
There’s a lot of progressive themes and messages in Idiot that should be appreciated.
Progressive Themes
The show is filled with some great lessons throughout. From Gulzar telling the man who complains about his wife all the time to not be so self-absorbed all the time, to him calling out the man flaunting his sacrificial goat for all to see.
The main social conflict other than the dog, however, comes at the end of the episode. Gulzar’s sister is getting married, and it turns out the groom’s family only agreed to the marriage because of the dowry. This causes quite the drama when Gulzar and his sister are rightfully angry about this messed up marriage.
The disgusting practice of dowry that still plagues our society is called out very well by the show through Gulzar. But this results in a horrible end to the night and tensions rising even further between him and his family.
The episode ends with two random men putting a gun to Gulzar’s head and inquiring about a girl. So, we will see how that unfolds in the episode next week.
Conclusion
Overall, an amazing episode which sets up a great new character in Gulzar who is played to perfection by Ahmed Ali Akbar. We also cannot wait to see Mansha Pasha enter the story in the coming weeks and see how these characters’ paths collide. Green Entertainment is on a roll.
