Searching For Sheela review: Repetitive questions and a dull narrative with absolutely no revelations

Dharmatic Entertainment’s Searching For Sheela ultimately fails to impress,

Searching For Sheela

If you’re tuning into Searching For Sheela, expecting it to bring even a glimmer of revelation into what you already know about the impenetrable mystery of Ma Anand Sheela, we have bad news for you. The only burning question you’ll be left asking yourself at the end of a very anaemic 58 minutes is if this Dharmatic Entertainment-Netflix documentary purposely aimed to leave the direction unfocused and the story repetitive.

Beginning with a phone call that confirms Ma Anand Sheela’s return to India after almost 35 years, Searching For Sheela follows the controversial figure of Sheela Birnstiel dodging questions from journalists and Indian socialites. The promise of the documentary shedding light on the real Sheela is completely unfulfilled. All that the audience will be left with is a sense of having watched a loosely and casually put together narrative that dilly dallies, featuring the same question reframed several different ways by tens of different journalists, all leading to absolutely no conclusion.

The expectation from Searching For Sheela was to unveil the truth behind Sheela’s crimes and depict her as she wants to be depicted- like an ordinary human being who has served her time and is making an attempt to forget her past. Sadly, this Shakun Batra-Karan Johar project does the exact opposite. Somehow, the documentary manages to take a figure like Sheela, imbibed in power and shrouded in ambiguity, and turn her into a silhouette of her portrayal in Wild Wild Country. Added to this mix is a random bunch of individuals, tittering and gossiping behind her back, only to raise a glass for a toast to Sheela the very next minute.

Overall, Searching For Sheela stitches together a very substandard account of what could have been a riveting insight into the mind of the woman who once commanded a commune of over thousands of people. The only point of clarity in an otherwise strewn story is that Sheela is fiercely defensive of her past, claiming that she had committed no crimes and craftily avoiding answering questions about her innocence. Does that stop the increasingly annoying influx of humdrum questions for both Sheela and the audience? As much as you’d like to hear an affirmative response, we are going to have to disappoint you.

The only instance where the documentary humanises Sheela and sheds light on a part of her that was not known before is when she visits her hometown and the house she was born in for the first time in ages. But by that point, it is already too late to redeem the tale.

What is our final verdict, you ask? If you’re mesmerized and in awe of the Ma Anand Sheela you witnessed in Wild Wild Country, preserve her and skip Searching For Sheela.

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