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Call Me Bae is a spirited new addition in guilty pleasures for the fashion-loving, rom-com starved soul, applauds Sukanya Verma.
If the DNAs of Elle Woods, Cher Horowitz, Blair Waldorf and Rachel Green could be cloned to create a brand new human, she’d be something of a Bae.
All these fashionable, flush with money ladies of big screen and small proved to the world they could be more than their stylish clothes and sunshine smiles without ever feeling apologetic about their stylish clothes and sunshine smiles.
Created by Ishita Moitra for Dharma’s streaming offshoot along with co-writers Samina Motlekar and Rohit Nair, Call Me Bae‘s eight episodes of fluff, fashion and feminism take forward the Gen X brand of starry-eyed optimism to an up in arms Gen Z audience in poor little rich girl Bella Chowdhary aka Bae’s (Ananya Pandey) flights of fancy.
(For those not so well-versed with generational slang, Bae is a term of endearment referring to someone’s sweetheart.)
It’s fun when a premise is not only clear about its frivolity but turns it into a cheerful ploy to put snooty scoffers to shame by the advocates of keto diet.
Nothing like oodles of wit to deal with wealth and woes in art. And Moitra’s tongue-in-cheek zingers come in good supply as much as her finger on the pulse of pop culture whilst telling the familiar story of a fish-out-of-water discovering her calling in the city of dreams.
Directed by Collin D’Cunha, earlier impressing this year with his segment in Love Storiyaan trickling in the warmth of a transgender couple’s real-life romance, Call Me Bae‘s cutesy confection and featherweight ideals start out like a designer dystopia only to quickly advance into a rose-tinted fantasy.
Everything about Bae’s golden-spooned existence is so far removed from bourgeois reality even its absence becomes a source of amusement.
Spending the night on the streets in a fancy Audi, lodging in a bohemian hippy collective called Lostel, paying rent by selling off her pet Patootie (luxury handbags have nicknames too) for cash, snuggling in her bespoke Charlotte Thomas bed sheets for warmth superior than humans, it’s the kind of glamorous struggle security guards of high-rises aspire for as hilariously highlighted in a meta moment that blurs the lines between Bae’s ignorance and Ananya’s privilege.
Raised in a posh South Delhi lifestyle by the worrier second wife (Mini Mathur) of a workaholic moneybags to marry into more money, Bae’s childhood memories comprise of winning mini Poo pageants and an adult life manifested in Jane Austen’s wry views on match making.
The pressure of striving to be a Birkin in a world full of fakes and posting round-the-clock life updates and larger-than-Louis Vuitton selfies across social media are part of upholding that distinction.
I am Bae, I am here to slay, mere Sara Ki Shayari-style affirmations form her core philosophy — one that she must constantly comply with to fit in her world. But it’s only when she uses it as a mantra to follow her heart that Bae finds her groove.
Following a dream wedding to a young tycoon Agastya ‘Aggy’ (Vihaan Samat), which looks like a cross between Deepika-Ranveer’s Lake Como nuptials and Siddharth-Kiara romantic union, Bae finds herself bored stiff in a mansion of all luxury, no life with the added pressure of having a baby by the nondescript mum-in-law.
One slip up and Bae is cast out as a social pariah with neither friends or family nor finances at her disposal.
Arriving in Mumbai, saviour of lost souls and rebellious women since time immemorial, Bae finds her smarts and survival instincts kicking hard over serendipitous encounters with bright-eyed behens as well as bosses while adding another feather in her ‘Guts’ cap.
Bae’s breezy friendships with the sassy, jugaad-expert Saira (Muskkaan Jaferi) and uptight yet superstitious colleague Tammarrah (Niharika Dutt) evokes the camaraderie of Rachel, Monica and Phoebe under one roof as they go from mates to roommates, flirtations around the iron-pumping Prince (Varun Sood) and Neel (Gurfateh Pirzada), the suave journalist she’s interning under, a happy-go-lucky new life unfolds over the course of eight light-hearted episodes.
There are pressing issues and pestering bullies, too, in the form of a #MeToo whistleblower and SS (Vir Das) — the pompous TV host of a TRF channel at loggerheads with Bae, reminiscent of an infamous yeller known to maul his guests under the pretext of nation wants to know.
Call Me Bae‘s snazzy momentum pursues social activism like a tagline not a punchline. Where its toxic office space is more in line with A Devil Calls Prada and Bruce Almighty, lifting the lid on influential men taking advantage of vulnerable women has the seriousness of a Nancy Drew investigation.
Bae’s history of dysfunctionality crops up in fleeting flashbacks connecting to her attention-grabbing tactics in the present but they aren’t as effective as the array of fields she specialises in. Mixology courses from Ibiza to climate resilience for the high net worth individual to following a diet of only oranges to fit into a bikini, Bae’s talent is as wide ranging as it is wild.
As evident in Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani, Moitra-the wordsmith precedes all else.
The writer has a gift for puns, pop culture lingo and trends that change faster than the speed of light. Occasionally, the breakneck speed of her verbal volleys can be crazy to keep up with but it’s a flavour of its own and Call Me Bae is all the better for it.
One gets a sense of the makers desi filmi keeda in Bae’s claims at knowing various skills picked from different parts of the world quite like Rajesh Khanna’s all-rounder Bawarchi and his celebrity encounters or the manner SS orders around his minion, a la Bindu’s ‘secretary follow me’ in Biwi Ho Toh Aisi.
Good on Vir Das for playing a caricature like the creep he is.
Of the guys, Gurfateh Pirzada’s charisma surplus, Vihaan Samat’s success in humanising a snob and Varun Sood’s gentle giant do well within their limited characterisations.
Call Me Bae makes no bones about its ‘behencode‘ supremacy.
The girls are at the forefront of the show and have a ball around Bae.
Muskaan’s gift of gab, gal pal energy is on point as is Niharika’s softie trapped in a sceptic’s body.
Lisa Mishra’s TV producer indulging in SS’s narcissistic behaviour has a stoic air but is weakly etched out.
Meanwhile, Mini Mathur as Bae’s Regina Rich-ish mum makes a meal out of her one maa-beti scene at the beach.
The Bella of the ball, of course, is Ananya Pandey.
A delightful ditz in designer dreams calling the ‘ullu‘ her spirit animal and goofing up on the teleprompter by spelling XI Jinping as Eleven Jinping, making cute faces at a roomie expecting her to clean the mess, putting a cad in his place by reverse shaming, rolling eyes at every ‘wokeness ki dukaan‘, Ananya is quite a riot as Bae.
The Poo fangirl on screen and off it moves on from the OMG gasping airhead by revealing surprising fragility across Bae’s journey from pretty puppet to person with a purpose.
There’s a geniality in Ananya’s demeanour, which bodes well for the humanity in Bae. Her sweet, spontaneous chit chats with the ‘bhaiyas’ of both Mumbai and Delhi and sloshed soliloquies draw attention to a blossoming comedian’s charm.
Add to that Anahita Shroff Adajania’s super chic styling, groovy music elevating the drama, girls bonding believably under unbelievable circumstances, Call Me Bae is a spirited new addition in guilty pleasures for the fashion-loving, rom-com starved soul.
Call Me Bae streams on Amazon Prime Video.
Call Me Bae Review Rediff Rating:
