Call Me Bae Review: Forgettable But Mildly Entertaining

In this comedy-drama Prime Video TV series, Bella “Bae” Chowdhury finds herself from a rich heiress to a homeless struggler after her husband finds her cheating on him. With her entire family and friends now against her, Bae finds herself leaning on her street smarts and her impeccable fashion sense to find a path to freedom and land firmly on her own two feet. The search takes her down the bustling lanes of Mumbai newsrooms where she starts to find a sense of self and independence that she could’ve only dreamt about in her previous life.

Produced by Dharmatic Entertainment, the series has 8 episodes, each with a runtime of 40 minutes and is created by Ishita Moitra.

Call Me Bae Review

Prime Video’s latest comedy series presents us with a girl who was born with a golden spoon, a girl with big dreams but who was only ever good at becoming someone’s wife according to her family – a girl who had it all in her but was not allowed to be more than just a showpiece in her husband’s life. Panday plays a street-smart but annoying Bae and her name goes with the shenanigans that we have come to know about characters like her. Her annoying moments, however, always remind us that underneath the glittering exterior is a woman who wants to be seen & heard and someone whose generous spirit can make anyone’s day.

However, when people constantly harp on the fact that they are very street-smart and capable of handling anything that comes their way, so much so that it becomes a part of their quirk, you believe it less and less. And the problem with our dear Bae is that although her character never fails to remind us that she is not an idiot, she constantly does things that make her look foolish & stupid and you can’t help but wonder how these two things exist together in any world.

It also doesn’t help that almost every character feels like a one-dimensional being with only one thing going for them. From Bae’s husband Agastya to Neel’s ex-wife and everyone in between, the series’ characters feel like they have only one thing that encompasses them as a person and they can’t think about anything beyond that. It’s difficult, thus, to take anyone in the series seriously because all of them feel fake and unnatural, a feeling that never really goes away as Bae tries to find her own self. Bae herself struggles to come out of the Sonaam Kapoor-type character (you know the one) and it always feels like her character is on repeat from one cliche to another, stuck in a box that she is unable to come out of.

Thankfully, Bae gets some moments where her character shines which is more than I can say about anyone else. I think the most interesting and somewhat well-rounded character for me was Neel N, Bae’s boss and the person who hired her to TRP. His chemistry with Ananya Panday is nice and there’s electricity in between them sometimes. I do, however, think that Panday lacks in portraying the brat with a heart-type character that is Bae – although she looks the part and the clothes are fantastic you can distinctly figure out that she is playing a character and doesn’t feel natural in it.

We also have Vir Das here as antagonist Satyajit Sen, a journalist who is heading the prime-time segment called The Confessional on TRP. I think his character is a bit on-the-nose and quite cartoonishly evil but there is promise in his character that makes you hate him to an extent. Das is great in his role and plays Sen with an icky precision that makes your skin crawl. Thankfully, the man has come a long way from Mastizaade, a film that continues to give me trauma whenever I accidentally remember it.

The biggest issue I had with this series is that the dialogues are so cringy – there are quite a few moments in the series where you will be compelled to roll your eyes and the dialogues are so ridiculous that it is difficult to take it seriously. Bae is a combination of Poo, Aisha and Emily but she tries to convince everyone that she is the ultimate combination of brains and beauty, which fails miserably when she says the dumbest things. Although the situations are sometimes entertaining, they go down similar veins after a while and end up being a regurgitation of old concepts and scenes that we have seen multiple times.

Call Me Bae tries to bring to the scene some important conversations surrounding being loved & accepted as well as data breaches, sexual harassment and extortion, as well as the falling quality of journalism. The series, however, takes a light-handed approach to most as things get solved too quickly and conveniently for the climax to be of any real win. Even when things start to happen at first, they move at a rapid pace, jumping from one sequence to another and over-explaining things in the process while other stuff that you might need some clarification on is left open-ended. I felt like the series could’ve stuck to one issue instead of jumping between several and made it believable, relatable and deeply moving instead of being a surface-level exploration of everything all at once.

Final Thoughts

Ananya Panday’s Call Me Bae is a mildly entertaining but, in the end, a convenient and surface-level affair that is great for a forgettable watch. I think it’s light enough to not be taken seriously but still has moments of intrigue and some genuine sequences, especially between the three women, that will keep you pushing till the last episode.

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