In the Prime Video series Call Me Bae, Ananya Panday plays Bella Chowdhary, a South Delhi heiress. Bae’s life capsizes when her high-profile marriage to Agastya (Vihaan Samat) ends badly after she’s caught canoodling with her personal trainer Prince (Varun Sood).
A disgraced Bae is dumped by her BFFs as well as ejected from family chats, WhatsApp groups and Delhi itself. Like Caroline Channing in the American sitcom Two Broke Girls, Bae finds herself with cancelled credit cards. She has to leave home with only her designer wardrobe and her Gram-fam as her support.
A penniless Bae moves to Mumbai, where she befriends Saira (Muskkan Jaferi), a trainee at a hotel. The unskilled Bae’s attempts at getting jobs are unsuccessful until a viral video of her shaming top-rated news anchor Satyajit Sen lands her an internship at the same channel.
Vir Das plays Satyajit – a send-up of a news anchor that viewers love to hate – with flamboyance and ferocity. Lisa Mishra is Harleen, producer of Sen’s prime time show Confessional. Gurfateh Pirzada plays Neel, Bae’s mentor and love interest.
Bae is the centre of attention of three men – one who has rejected her, one whom she has rejected, and one to whom she is attracted. Yet, Ananya Panday shares better chemistry with Vir Das than any of these three men. The scenes with Das also have the most energy and some humour.
The eight-episode series is peppered with cameos as Bae and her tribe – Saira, Prince and colleague Tammarrah (Niharika Dutt) – team up to break a massive news report. Ishita Moitra’s story, written along with Samina Motlekar and Rohit Nair, takes some sweeping liberties with the working of reporters, journalistic practices and credibility.
For example, why does an anonymous source choose a newbie to share her explosive story? There is also references to real-life bloopers, such as when a newsreader referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as “Eleven”, as well as a cautionary tale about the violation of privacy by telcom companies.
Bae’s coming of age as an independent working woman could have been the crux of the story, had more time been spent on her struggle when she lands in Mumbai. But Call Me Bae is more about style and skin-deep dilemmas. The Hindi-English show panders to social media trends and wokeness with a light touch.
Director Collin D’Cunha hits his stride in the more dramatic moments, particularly with Bae’s newsbreak and its aftermath, while the friend zone moments are less inventive. Of the cast, Muskkaan Jaferi gets an interesting character and makes the most of Saira’s various shades. Mini Mathur is also fun as the Delhi socialite mother focused on keeping up appearances.
Of course, Call Me Bae is the Ananya Panday show. Panday often channels Alexis Rose from Schitt’s Creek (recall those cutesy hand gestures owned by Anne Murphy).
Subtract the obvious appropriations from the wacky American shows and Panday owns her character. She is Miss Congeniality, unapologetic about her privilege and wealth, yet kind and determined. Or as Bae would say, she is “flawsome”.
