A little frivolous, but certainly not completely mindless

New Delhi:

Created by Ishita Moitra, written by her along with Samina Motlekar and Rohit Nair, and directed by Collin D'Cunha, Call Me Bae is largely a broad-brush film, not without its fair share of fun and inspiration.

Another thing is that the terrain that Call me honey traverses is not immediately and naturally conducive to anything more than communicating superficial truths about life and manners and wealth and reality checks. The show does that, perhaps a little more, with passable flair.

Ananya Panday stars in the eight-part series produced by Dharmatic Entertainment on Prime Video India, a social comedy that follows the anxieties and woes of a filthy rich girl from South Delhi who is thrown out into the cold and forced to fend for herself in Mumbai.

The character only sporadically pushes Panday out of her comfort zone. But to her credit, she takes advantage of the ample opportunities for development offered by the long story and assured writing style. She creates a character that is relatable and worth rooting for, even if the show doesn't offer many eye-opening revelations.

For Bella Chowdhary, aka Bae, who was born into wealth and married into even greater wealth, there is such a thing as “too much bling.” As the series begins, her family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Her marital union with the scion of a thriving business empire saves her parents from falling into the middle class.

But when everything seems to be going well, life takes an unexpected and unfortunate turn. Bae loses the favor of her rich husband, no longer has access to the money she could have wished for, and is forced to leave Delhi and settle in Mumbai.

Are old habits easy to break? Not for Bae. She can't shake her obsession with designer clothes and accessories. Not that Call me honey makes the enchanted heroine endure the same drudgery that normal mortals have to endure day after day in order to make ends meet.

Bae doesn't exactly live in slums. The worst that can happen to her is that she will have to get a job, share an apartment with a colleague, commute in an autorickshaw and deign to eat vada pav on the beach (but not without first disinfecting the bench she is sitting on).

The cast is wholesome. Ananya Panday feeds off Bae and vice versa. The protagonist, like a true star kid, is so used to her super-luxurious cocoon that when she steps out of the protective bubble of her loving and calculating mother (Mini Mathur) and her husband (Vihaan Samat), who denies her nothing but his attention, and into the real world, she is still infinitely better off materially than most of us will ever be in the best of times.

In a meta dig at a remark by Ananya Panday that became a meme and went viral, a security guard at an apartment complex quips that he would be happy to get to where Bae's Majboori begins. The lady's response to this remark – where have I heard that before? – not only breaks down the wall between the fictional and the real for a fleeting moment, but is also an example of the self-deprecating humor that is found throughout Call Me Bae.

The writing is generally lighthearted and the story moves along at a fairly fast pace. A crowd of people surround Bae as she makes her way through the rough and tumble life of a town that is not her own. The series follows her transformation into a woman who learns to overcome setbacks and hurdles and finds friends, purpose and grit.

Call me honey alternates between pleasantly casual and unnecessarily frivolous in search of a narrative middle ground that can hold the show together. The flow may not be consistent, but the mix of wit and seriousness works for the most part.

Call me honey gets deadly serious in the final quarter, as the heroine takes it upon herself to uncover an unholy connection between the mainstream media and a corporation whose boss is not what he claims to be.

When Bae's picture-perfect life is marred by an indiscretion and her husband's knee-jerk reaction to it, and she is forced to forge her own path, the first few episodes keep the audience hooked on her plight. After that, just a hint of monotony creeps in, but it causes no lasting or major damage.

As is typical in stories of this kind, it takes Bae little time to find soulmates who will stand by her through thick and thin. Five-star hotel employee Saira Ali (Muskkan Jaferi) is the first. Bae gifts her an LV Sarah purse, a gesture that proves to be a godsend in the long run.

Bae easily gets a job at a news channel, where she quickly befriends a rookie reporter (Niharika Lyra Dutt) who knows what she's thinking. After a few episodes, she also teams up with an actress (Sayani Gupta, in a lengthy cameo that makes an impression) who has a story to share with the world.

The girls form a coven that gives them the strength to deal with their own mistakes – both Bae and Saira have serious ones – and to stand up to the arrogance of Satyajit Sen aka SS (Vir Das), who hosts the channel's main prime-time show. He is a complete idiot who hides the stench he emits behind a facade of caustic arrogance. Das' performance is one of the show's highlights.

Not all the men around Bae are despicable louts. One of them, Neel N. (Gurfateh Pirzada), swears by the virtues of serious journalism and stands against the sensationalism spread by the SS. He instills in Bae the belief that “the story is always bigger than the journalist.”

The man who knocks Bae out and causes trouble in her paradise – celebrity fitness trainer Prince (Varun Sood) – also doubles as a tech genius and ethical hacker when the going gets tough. He proves to be her greatest ally when problems start to pile up.

Someone advises Bae to turn off her TV if “you want real journalism… it’s not on TV anymore.” It is unknown whether Bae follows this advice, but if you are looking for something other than a few hours of sudsy entertainment, Call me honey is perhaps not for you. It may be a little frivolous, but the series is certainly not irredeemably mindless or devoid of substance.