India’s Sex and the City. 3/5 #MaanviGagroo #SayaniGupta, #Gurbani #vjbani #KirtiKulhari #Prateik #NeilBhoopalam #LisaRay #MilindSoman #SimoneSingh #sex #lust #betrayal #SoBo #strongwomen #feminism #amazon #primeoriginal
Language: Hindi
Season: 1
Number of Episodes: 9
Director: Anu Menon
Producer: Rangita Pritish Nandy
Starring: Maanvi Gagroo, Sayani Gupta, Gurbani, Kirti Kulhari, Prateik, Neil Bhoopalam, Lisa Ray, Milind Soman, Simone Singh
Not an easy pill to swallow for a lot of people, but a good attempt to portray the lives of the four leads, the SoBo culture and feminism.
The story revolves around Siddhi Patel, Damini, Anjana Menon and Umang Singh. How they meet by-chance at a bar and became friends over night. Each character has a baggage of their own.
Siddhi Patel’s story is the most believable of the lot. She is the youngest of the friends. A rich daddy’s girl with mommy issues. She is a bit naïve in the way she handles her life. Her mother wants her girl to fit into the high society and keeps nagging her about everything that she does, body shaming her. There seems more to the story of the mother, probably something for second season. Siddhi’s story is about her path to find what she wants in her life.
Umang Singh is a bisexual girl who has run away from her hometown Ludhaina and setup herself as a gym instructor in South Mumbai. Her story is one of struggle. A struggle to be accepted in her family and the society for who she is.
Damini is a supposedly strong ambitious feministic journalist. But her story is depicted in a weird manner. A journalist with biased opinions at times. A feminist who feels that being a female makes her special. But wants support in every part of life, be it professional or personal. Her feminism is all that is wrong with some of the current feminists.
Anjana Menon is a lawyer, a divorcee, who shares the custody of her child with her ex-husband, Varun Khanna. She hasn’t been able to move on after her separation and feels jealous that her husband did. She gets separated because she was the responsible one in their relationship and she had to take responsibility of the kid, the house as well as the husband.
The show tries to show strong confident women who own their lives. But they don’t do a very convincing job. The friendship is flaky and forced at times. There is sex and cussing just for the sake of being on trend, Indian Netflix style.
It wants to show the characters as ambitious, but the story doesn’t have enough to show they really are. A journalist who freezes seeing trouble, a good lawyer who isn’t recognized at the court or wins any of her cases, a gym trainer who cannot be professional.
There are some glaring flaws like Kavya waiting even after the child has a fever of 105 degree, or the sudden return of Jeh’s girlfriend.
It has a lot of eye-candy in the form of Lisa Ray, Milind Soman, Prateik as supporting cast.
Performance:
All the main characters - Maanvi Gagroo, Sayani Gupta, Gurbani and Kirti Kulhari do a great job in their portrayal of their respective characters. The casting of Kirti Kulhari as a Malayali is a little funny though.
The supporting cast is good. Milind Soman is mainly there as eye-candy.
Flaws in storytelling specially with the stories of Damini and Anjali Menon.
It has a good set of original songs that plays well in the background throughout the season. The costume designer makes every scene look straight out of a fashion show or glamour mag.
Conclusion:
Another version of Veere Di Wedding, which is better than the movie, but can’t portray real friendship just like the movie. Season one is a good one-time watch. It has ended on a promise of a second season. I rate this season 3/5.