Call Me Bae review: Ananya Panday’s show is frothy, frivolous and fun

So that’s Bella aka Bae, and in the playing of this poor little rich girl, who discovers poverty quite soon after telling us about her swish homes and choppers and designer bags, Ananya Panday has found her metier.

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Her metre — and delivery — is just right, as she goes through the paces set for Bella by writers Ishita Mitra, Samina Motlekar, Rohit Nair, who appear completely committed to the cheery, sunny disposition of their leading lady, and by extension, their show. ‘Call Me Bae’, a Dharmatic Production, is frothy and frivolous and fun, just as it should be for the kind of show it sets out to be, and it’s all good till it remains in this zone.

It’s self-aware to the right degree by sending itself up just enough, not letting self-righteousness weigh its exaggerations down. It’s only when it starts getting too woke and serious about its chosen hot button topic– misogyny and sexism, and MeToo revelations — that it bites off decidedly more than it can chew.

It is a dark, rainy night when Ms Bella Bae is cast out of her mansion by a frothing, fuming husband surrounded only by her clutch of matching LV bags. Over eight episodes, we follow Bae as she struggles out from under, passing through the following stages–drowned rat, devastated wife, plucky survivor, struggling for selfhood, and finally reaching where she needs to be.

Bae could well be a cliche, because she is an amalgamation of the scores of silly, ditzy girls – think Alicia Silverstone, Elle Woods, and more — who’ve paraded across our screens, her brunette beach waves replacing those dumb blonde strands.

But Panday, who fully embraces the shallow crevices of the her character, invests her Bae with a real sweetness which feels genuine, and owns the part: determined not to be beaten by the kind of circumstances which would have others in her position curl up and give in, she squares her slender shoulders, and launches forth, asking us to call her Bae, who will slay.

Panday being in such pole position necessarily means that everyone else revolves around her. But when it all gets too much for her, and there’s only that much she can do to keep it all going, the other characters get a look-in.

Her husband (Vihaan Samat) is one of those uncouth rich South Delhi guys who are always off somewhere, handing their wives platinum cards to shop until they drop. There’s her little indiscretion in the shape of the bulked up gym trainer (Varun Sood) who breaks out of being eye candy-cum-chick magnet-cum-on-and-off-dalliance for bored rich housewives cliche by revealing his soft side, as wholesome as a protein shake.

There’s the investigative TV journalist (Gurfateh Pirzada) who offers her a job in his channel, though which real journalist in their right minds would offer this clueless creature a real job is a question that goes unanswered. Even Vir Das, who truly slays in his real-life stand-up avatar, is reduced to playing yet another variation of a famous anchor who has a direct line on what the Nation Wants To Know, and whose one job is to badger and humiliate his guests, and smirk when things go badly for them, as planned.

The women fare better. Muskkaan Jaferi, as the working girl who comes to poor Bae’s rescue, and speaks virtuously about the importance of being your own woman, has a secret vice, which we come to know of, by and by. Jaferi is excellent. The others — Niharika Lyra Dutt as a colleague and flatmate, and Lisa Mishra as a senior TV producer — hold their own. As does Mini Mathur, looking every inch the rich mummyji on the prowl for a richer damaad.

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In the way it begins, and as it goes along, the writing shows real flair, catching Gen Z rhythms in real-time, even if some of the scenes, and locations, look as if they’ve just been set-up for the shoot, or the punch-line. Still, some of the show’s richie-rich argot does make you laugh. My favourite is: chopper lagwaa doon? Like, gaadi bulwaa doon? That’s a nice lift-off, haha.

If it only hadn’t gone off the rails as it builds up to the climax, ‘Call Me Bae’ would have breezed right through. The last three episodes with these characters going off sleuthing, looking for mysterious MeToo victims is just plain dull and clunky. And that whole TV channel schtick, rival anchors lusting after TRPs, newsroom meetings, real journalists vs social media warriors, feels stale.

How many times will we see the word hashtag be played out as if we are hearing it for the first time? How many times will Instagram queens be shown oversharing each tic, tac, toe? I’m so over this litany. Can this be ditched? Or is that too much to ask for?

When she is off social media, Bae really does learn to live a little, and understand the importance of ‘behen-code’, with or without a hashtag. And that’s where the show scores. You don’t need no man to be yourself. Sisterhood by any other name is a good, good thing, and Bae gets it.

Call Me Bae 
Call Me Bae cast: Ananya Panday, Vir Das, Gurfateh Pirzada, Varun Sood, Vihaan Samat, Muskkaan Jaferi, Niharika Lyra Dutt, Mini Mathur, Lisa Mishra
Call Me Bae director: Collin D’Cunha, written by Ishita Mitra, Samina Motlekar, Rohit Nair
Call Me Bae rating: 2 5 stars