A Guilty Pleasure Wrapped in Gucci: Call Me Bae Review
There are films that run on extensive research and make you introspect, and then there are others that don’t have an ounce of practicality and make it to the audience’s guilty pleasure watchlist. Prime Video’s latest original series, Call Me Bae, falls into the latter category. It is essentially the story of an uber-rich Bella “Bae” Chowdhary, who has been disowned by her family and is now trying to restart her life from scratch in Mumbai. While the premise might sound familiar, Call Me Bae leans heavily on the tropes of classic feel-good stories, leaving viewers with a comforting sense of escapism rather than a deep dive into reality.
A Fairy Tale in Modern Mumbai
Call Me Bae begins with Ananya Panday’s uber-rich Bella “Bae” Chowdhary being thrown out of her Delhi mansion in the pouring rain. Used to being flown in helicopters and gifting cricket teams to loved ones, she is now utterly lost and alone. With none of her friends and family ready to help, Bae must navigate the treacherous waters of Mumbai with only her Gucci suitcases, filled with millions of dollars’ worth of outfits and accessories, for company.
Determined to turn her fate around, our protagonist sets out to rebuild her life from scratch. Across the next seven episodes, we see her trying to adjust to a new reality and rewrite her life story, naturally succeeding in the classic fairy-tale format the show adheres to.
The princess-turned-pauper experiences a lot of firsts: staying in a hostel, cleaning up after herself, eating white bread which she thought had gone extinct, and experiencing a roof leakage. She boards an auto-rikshaw for the first time and goes on to label it as a breezier version of Mini Coopers; a comparison I am going to feed my anxious brain every time monthly budgets lay low.
Even when she misses her previous life and worries about the future, Bae gives her new life an honest chance and stays optimistic. The best part? She doesn’t ditch away her generosity, kindness, and faith in humanity. She’d give you second chances, fight for your friendship, and call a spade for a spade.
While the show is heavy on the feel-good factor, it also incorporates a fair amount of humor, delivered through witty pop culture references and bling, adding a lighthearted touch to the story.
A Reality Check? Not Exactly.
Although, if there were a debate on the series, a lot of theorists might suggest that on some level, Bae always knew her family would ultimately have her back, and she is on her way to enjoy pseudo-poverty, a concept where the wealthy ditch their luxuries temporarily to have a new experience of how normal people live; for sheer entertainment or a self-discovery facade. Well, if you’re expecting practicality in a Karan Johar production, that’s on you.
Call Me Bae embraces the unrealistic and the fantastical, presenting a world where everything conveniently falls into place for the protagonist. However, the series still manages to elicit a smile from its viewers. Sometimes, a reminder of how good things can turn served with a side of hope is just what we need, and Panday’s series did it for me. From her behen code (the sister code that makes you prioritize your female friends) to a simple acknowledgment of being a flawed human and yet deserving good things, these uplifting tropes felt reassuring.
However, one could argue that the show loses touch with reality in other areas. In a tanking economic scenario where people are sticking to their toxic jobs because of a crashed market, Bae is getting a well-paid internship at a prestigious news channel. That too when her resume is just a compilation of eccentric courses like how to communicate with your spirit animal, psychic vegan cheese and wine pairing, ethical emerald jewellery design, cyberfeminism, how to change the world one tweet at a time, underwater basket weaving – the list goes on. If only we could switch to this universe!
Social Media and Pop Culture Take Center Stage
To appeal to the Instagram-addicted young audience, Call Me Bae floods the viewers with pop culture references that might not interest someone not familiar with them. But if you are updated with the latest trends that catch the fancy of the youth, be up for an amusing stretch of streaming.
There are references to Jay-Z-Beyonce’s rumored split, Jimmy Kimmel’s post-Oscars parties, and even Fifty Shades of Grey. Panday even quotes Joey Tribbinani’s popular dialogue from the American sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S: A moment on your lips, forever on the hips. Probably, this is why Prime Video has specifically categorized the show for the “young adult audience”.
The show skillfully captures the essence of social media in a playful and relatable way, effectively conveying its pervasive presence in our lives. Whenever a character posts online, small emojis fly on our screen, and their Google searches are shown with a special pop-up, making the characters’ online experiences feel intimately familiar. The editing here is quite impressive. Panday’s Netflix film, Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, which revolved extensively on the subject, had also excelled in the representation.
Loneliness and Journalism Under The Microscope
However, Call Me Bae isn’t just about jaw-dropping fashion choices, social media, and pop culture. It slightly touches upon sensitive subjects like loneliness and the impact of childhood neglect. Not a great job there, though. While the pain of her previously golden-caged life resonates well across the screens, the seriousness of the issue is criminally undermined. The lukewarm representation shies away from the dark aspects and fails to acknowledge it as a potentially life-threatening issue.
We see the otherwise bubbly Bae teary and talking to her handbags – whom she has named – and hanging onto every opportunity to talk to another human, even if s/he is a homeless criminal in jail. She strives for the validation of strangers on the Internet by posting even the tiniest updates of her life online. But that’s all. And oh, by the way, she has done plenty of eccentric courses too: how to communicate with your spirit animal, psychic vegan cheese and wine pairing, ethical emerald jewellery design, how to change the world one tweet at a time, underwater basket weaving – the list goes on. However, Johar’s series refrains from covering much darker aspects of loneliness, opting for a much lukewarm representation of the serious issue.
The series does take a serious dig at contemporary journalism, especially television journalism. The message is loud and clear: actual journalism is on the verge of extinction. We see talented journalists not being allowed to take up actual stories of substance – simply because they don’t have a sensational angle to them. There is a junior reporter dressing up as leopards and ghosts for a show instead of doing something fruitful. What a metaphorical representation of the circus that some news channels have reduced to today! There is even a magazine cover with a blurb that reads, “What to wear when you’re caught cheating”. Christ!
Satire and A Harsh Reflection of Reality
Stand-up comedian Vir Das here shines as a narcissistic journalist who believes the nation is a “beast” wanting to feed on sensationalism. He would shamelessly disclose people’s personal lives on national television and magnify irrelevant facts in his reports to add the spice. For him, Pakistan spells D-R-A-M-A and office attire includes a lux coat and a boxer. (Somebody, please remind him that the work-from-home days are over, and it’s not a mid-day Zoom meeting.) The cheap news tickers in his talk show read “Our truth is better than your truth” and “This issue needs a tissue”.
In a scene, he shouts, "Mujhe drugs do" [give me drugs] while alleging a wrestler of being doped before a match. Reminded of someone? Well, we have special journalists who love harassing people on their shows in the name of the nation wanting to know. Shouldn’t be that hard to guess. Das’s satirical portrayal is on point.
Contrarily, Das has never been shy about voicing his opinion on the rotting political state of the country and the horrendous role of unethical journalists fueling the decay, in real life. He seems to have found the perfect way of channeling his frustration through his character in Call Me Bae, especially after he was banned previously from certain states in India for his supposed anti-nation sentiments in a Netflix Comedy Special for which he later won an Emmy.
The series also has a brief cameo by independent journalist Faye Desouza, who is seen giving heartful advice to serious journalists ditching television if they want to make an actual difference. Dsouza, too, is known for being brutally honest about the barbaric decay of journalistic ethics, and her brief stint in the show makes perfect sense.
A Lighthearted Escapade with a Few Flawed Moments
Ananya Panday’s series might not break new ground or dive deep into complex themes. In fact, it is predictable, cheesy, and overstuffed with plot holes that’ll make you sigh. Acknowledged. But that’s exactly what makes it a fun, mindless watch. Call Me Bae’s tone is overly enthusiastic, unrealistically optimistic, and utterly dreamy, just like its delusional protagonist. It’s a show that you turn to when you want your brain cells to rest and feed on mindless comedy. Don’t expect a cerebral or visceral experience; Call Me Bae never promised to be one. We have plenty of those films and shows already.
Call Me Bae is a fantasy world where everything falls into place, and our protagonist finds overly supportive strangers who become her best friends in a shockingly short span of time. It’s a Karan Johar-esque romp, borrowing the best bits from his previous works. While it’s no cinematic masterpiece, Call Me Bae has its unique beat. It’s a quirky, delusional, and endearingly optimistic tale that creates a bubble of its own.
Rating: 8/10
