Mumbai: Netflix has released the first look at Unaccustomed Earth, its eight-episode series inspired by Jhumpa Lahiri’s 2008 short-story collection, starring Freida Pinto and Siddharth. The series will premiere on 17 December.
It is an adaptation with a twist. Lahiri’s book is made up of eight standalone stories about Bengali-American families, but showrunner Madhuri Shekar has taken characters from across them and imagined what would happen if they all knew one another.
“This image came to me of all of these characters from the different stories sitting around the Thanksgiving table together. In the book, the one thing the stories have in common is that they’re all set in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So if all of these people technically live in the same spot, what if they all know each other? And then, suddenly, these connections started forming between them. This beautiful community just blossomed,” Shekar told Netflix.
The series revolves around Parul Chaudhury, played by Pinto. She has been living in Mumbai with her husband and son for five years when a health crisis brings the family back to Cambridge, where she went to college. There, she reconnects with Amit Mukherjee, played by Siddharth, a former love she never quite got over.
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A close-up of Lahiri’s world
The first-look images give a sense of both Pinto and Siddharth’s storyline and the larger community around them. The two appear together in several stills, including a close-up of them facing each other. Pinto is also seen at home with Indraneil Sengupta and on a sunlit porch with Sarayu Blue. Another image brings the larger family together for a puja.
Sengupta plays Parul’s husband Jai, while Blue plays Ruma. Parveen Kaur plays Nina, Justin Bartha is Adam, and Jayant Kripalani plays Pranab. Iyla Sundarsingh McKaig and Adi Roy play Hema and Kaushik.
Ritesh Batra, who previously directed The Lunchbox (2013), has directed the first two episodes and is also an executive producer.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)