#Review: Babita Singh Reporting (Amazon Prime)

I am a millennial, and you really haven’t lived enough if you haven’t, at some point, had a crush on Arnav Singh Raizada. So yes, watching Babita Singh Reporting on a Sunday night, despite an early start the next morning, had something to do with Barun Sobti. I went in as a Barun fan and came out an even bigger admirer of Nimisha Sajayan.

What surprised me was that the film exceeded my expectations not just in character development, but in its plot as well. This is not your usual whodunit. Bansi’s murder becomes the catalyst for something much larger—the gradual reclaiming of a woman’s voice, agency and right to be angry.

Nimisha’s Babita is never turned into a convenient superwoman. She is an ASI, a daughter-in-law, a wife, and a woman carrying the weight of suspension, unrealistic expectations, domestic labour and the loss of a dear friend, often simultaneously. Her transformation is painfully gradual, built on quiet anger and an almost heartbreaking patience. There is a lovely visual metaphor when she visits Bansi’s home for his funeral and catches sight of the hands of Goddess Durga. Babita, too, is juggling multiple worlds with the quiet strength of a woman who is expected to hold everything together.

And then there is Barun Sobti. From Arnav Singh Raizada to Nikhil Nair in Asur and Amarpal Garundi in Kohrra, he has consistently shown how much life he can bring to a character, even with limited screen time. As Bansi, he does exactly that. His friendship with Babita is beautifully written—no romance, no hidden crush, just two childhood friends who kept showing up for each other.

For a while, the film is a delicious whodunit, with almost everyone connected to Bansi seeming to have a motive. But the writing keeps asking a more interesting question: what is right, and what is real? The battle is as much between the mind and the heart as it is between truth and convenience.

Even the symbolism around Bansi is quietly clever. Ravana’s back, in mythological and literary interpretations, carries ideas of hidden vulnerability and inevitable defeat. Ironically, Bansi’s own place of solace is that very spot—where he retreats whenever life overwhelms him—and it eventually becomes crucial to the film’s closure.

And perhaps the most uncomfortable relationship is Babita and Sharad’s. What looks like affection begins to feel transactional when its foundation is mutual utility. The moment Babita mirrors his own body-shaming back at him, he collapses into self-victimisation. It makes you wonder whether love can truly survive when empathy is conditional.

That is what makes Babita Singh Reporting work: beneath the murder is a battle between what we owe others and what we owe ourselves.