OTT platforms are often accused of stifling creative voices, of surrendering to the very formula they once sought to resist by supporting bold, original projects. Take Netflix as the most obvious example. What began with the release of something like Sacred Games (followed by other interesting twists like Leila and Ghoul) soon fell into mediocrity with Bard of Blood, Khakee: The Bihar Chapter, Mismatched, Kota Factory, Class, and Dabba Cartel (the list is long, but you get the idea).
There have been excellent Netflix originals here and there (Kohrra, Guns & Gulaabs, Delhi Crime, Killer Soup, Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein), but these have proven to be exceptions, not the norm. To see just how bad things have gotten—how creativity has been taken over by unimaginative, risk-averse studio heads—watch The Ba***ds of Bollywood, a dramedy from the mind of Aryan Khan.
Stars: Bobby Deol, Lakshya, Raghav Juyal
Directors often debut in a world or material that feels familiar to them, as it helps them convey their vision through personal experience. As the son of superstar Shah Rukh Khan, Aryan Khan must have extensive experience and a deep understanding of the Hindi film industry: its actors, directors, and studio heads. It makes sense, then, that The Ba***ds of Bollywood unfolds amidst the egos of actors, the travails of a newcomer, a high-rise Dharma studio, and the movie mafia. What Aryan says about this world is almost inconsequential (who knew actors complain to each other and don't always indulge in intellectual arguments, that the macho hero onscreen kowtows to gangsters in the real world and needs bail bonds to get out of a police station?).
The Ba***ds of Bollywood isn't a shallow film piece like The Studio. In fact, Aryan has little interest in discussing the filmmaking process itself (we only go behind the scenes and on set at the beginning of Episode 1). The seven-part series uses the world of cinema as a backdrop for clichés. A character promises to "seal his lips" to keep a secret. In the next scene, he opens his mouth and reveals all the details. Jaraj Saxena (Rajat Bedi) makes a fake call to Karan Johar, pretending to be Karishma Talwar (Sahher Bambba). When the real Karishma calls, Johar starts insulting him, thinking it's still Jaraj. Karishma sees Aasmaan Singh (Lakshya Lalwani) kissing a girl, jumps to the wrong conclusion, and leaves. If she had waited a few seconds longer, she would have seen Aasmaan rejecting the girl (this is the oldest cliché in the book). And during a funeral, we get a brief, cheesy flashback so we can understand how much two characters supposedly loved each other.
Clichés, however, can be pleasurable when used with feeling and vigor. Luckily, Aryan has a predilection for the trite, so these banalities don't drag him down; they don't bore him. However, there's a tension between these trivial moments and the youthful twist Aryan wants to give the material. He likes the classic, but he also wants to see his story from a fresh, energetic perspective. That lively spirit is evoked through expletives and dramatic force. The dialogue is deliciously crude, and with the contracts acting as forces of confinement and repression, the story takes on the shape of a high-stakes thriller. But Aryan isn't content with just one source of stress, so he tightens the narrative through Ajay Talwar (Bobby Deol).
Ajay hates Aasmaan and doesn't want him to date his daughter, Karishma. The reason, at first, seems to be Aasmaan’s views on nepotism, which he hurls at Karishma as a taunt (this panel discussion is reminiscent of the one involving Siddhant Chaturvedi and Ananya Panday, where he said, “Jahan apne sapne poore hote hai, wahan inke struggle shuru hote hai”). However, the real reason is revealed to be something else, which I won’t spoil here. However, it’s worth mentioning how skillfully it’s foreshadowed through certain situations and dialogues (a brother calls his sister a slut, a sister accidentally catches her brother in a “compromising position,” and a man considers someone lucky to have an attractive mother).
With The Ba***ds of Bollywood, Aryan proves himself a deft distributor of plot devices: a director who skillfully generates surface-level payoffs. Look at his canny use of the line "Mai auraton pe haath nahi utha ta" or his approach to an Emraan Hashmi cameo. Even a Badshah bit gets a comical nod later on. These moments, though entertaining, don't add up to much. Aryan, at best, generates fleeting pleasures. He offers brief bursts of joy but fails to maintain a consistent tone. If one scene invites you to feel sad about a liver problem, the next motivates you to laugh at an ad shoot. If one moment showcases Gafoor Bhai's (Arshad Warsi) sense of humor, the next offers a glimpse of the devil within him when he invites someone over for dinner.
The Ba***ds of Bollywood is essentially about control: Ajay wants to control Karishma, and Freddy wants to control Aasmaan. The latter represents a case of a corporation (Sodawallah Productions) attempting to control personal freedom (Aasmaan can't work on a Karan Johar production). This dynamic between the corporate and the personal is also evident in the contrast between Aryan's eccentricity and Netflix's demands. You can sense that Aryan wants to go further, wanting to be as dark as Anurag Kashyap, but something is holding him back. It seems as if someone has told him to stay within limits, to go wild, but with caution. As a result, we see two opposing sides of Aryan. One side strives to be dark and raw, while the other strives to please the audience. The Aryan who delivers emotionally weak scenes, such as the one involving a death and a funeral, clashes with the Aryan who delivers a silly but funny car chase sequence.
The end result, unfortunately, is the worst of both worlds. The sentimental drama undermines the comedy, and the comedy undermines the sentimental drama. This tonal inconsistency is mitigated by cheeky cameos and an illusion of zest (credit to editor Nitin Baid). What's more, one character, at one point, pokes fun at such "tree-hopping" romances, but Aryan's vision of romance is similarly chaste and unassuming. For all the flirtatious glances and sexual undertones, there's no intimacy, no sex, and no burning passion between Karishma and Aasmaan.
The reason for this is illustrated by that twist in the climax, though it also reveals how tame Aryan is with his vision. He could have been Park Chan-wook from Oldboy, but he settles for being a seemingly edgy Karan Johar. It's still too early to pass a verdict on this director, but one thing is clear: he shows a lot of promise and talent. Anyway, now that Aryan has made his debut, the next time he shouts "Action!" he should make the film or show he really wants, like an uninhibited director.
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