Call Me Bae review: This heiress to hustler story is one you don’t want to miss out on!

Ananya Panday’s Call Me Bae is part fun, part superficial and part relatable which makes it the perfect light hearted watch for the weekend!

Call Me Bae review: Over the past decade, we’ve had our fair share of ‘chick flicks’ (for the lack of a better term) that we go back to re-watching again and again. So far, we've mostly had characters from the West that we have grown up on but barely any Indian representation that we could resonate with except Pooh from K3G whose attitude and sass will always be one for the books. Elle Woods from Legally Blonde was empowering in a way where she made us feel like we could literally conquer anything we’d like and wearing pink isn’t frivolous. Alexis from Schitt’s Creek had the kind of character development that none of us will forget. She went from riches to rags in no time but learnt the value of precious things in life which money can never buy. And Bae aka Bella Chowdhary is an amalgamation of all of these characters. But at the same time, she brings a little something of her own to the table. It feels like these characters walked so Bae could run today! 

The series starts with Bae (Ananya Panday) introducing herself. She's born with a golden spoon but while she got the best of everything, she was never given a chance to dream and have goals; she was only raised to fall in love with Agastya Chowdhary (Vihaan Samaat), the heir to a much bigger empire than hers. Since her father was on the verge of bankruptcy, Bae marrying Agastya was the most important thing to her family. But the two had very different outlooks on life post their marriage. After trying her best to make things work with Agastya, Bae quickly realized how lonely she is in a loveless marriage. 

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The consequences of that led to her be thrown out of her house and with nowhere to go to, she finds hope in the city of dreams aka Mumbai. Here’s where her real challenges begin! She goes from the comfort of her bubble to the harsh realities of adulthood and that's when her world turns upside down. Someone who cannot even get herself to say the word poor, has to now fend for herself in a city where no one cares who you are, where you come from or how you’re feeling as long as the work is getting done. It was interesting to see how even though Bae comes from a really rich and educated family, she still had no say in anything at all. It truly shows how women are not given a chance to dream wholeheartedly no matter which socio-economical class they come from. At the core of it all, everyone would prefer us to be the 'blonde’ without opinions who was dependent on the man.

But Bae had the fire to reach for the stars. But she can’t do that alone which is why the only good thing Mumbai gives her is her friends. She meets Saira (Muskkan Jafferi) ,Tamarrah (Niharika Dutt) and her trainer Prince (Varun Sood) who thinks he is head over heels in love with her in the most unexpected way. And just as unexpectedly, she also lands herself a job at TRP because Neel (Gurfateh Pirzada) likes her unique take on things. The news channel’s highest rated show is confessional which is hosted by Satyajit (Vir Das), a ruthless anchor who loves invading the privacy of celebrities and exposing them on his show. It’s all a satirical take on what journalism looks like currently and some scenes are probably too in the face at that. Satyajit hates the fact that Bae speaks her mind without any remorse and wants to often put her in place.

But here’s the thing about Bae as a character, you’d ofcourse judge her the minute you see her on-screen. You’d think she is living in pretentiousness all her life, she can’t think beyond her fashion labels but the truth is that all of us have a little bit of Bae in us. She makes me relate to all the indulgent parts of myself. If I had the kind of money she did, I might be a version of her for sure! But just like Elle Woods, she goes from thinking about what should be her next outfit to what should be her next story. She starts off as someone frivolous to someone a lot of women could count on to be their voice, to tell their story the right way. 

Having said that, at the core of it all, this is a coming of age story and of course there are certain parts where you cannot help but feel like things were a bit too over the top. But that’s the fun of it all. You know certain dialogues aren’t how people talk to each other on a daily basis but you cannot stop binging it anyway. There’s also three main elements apart from the story that keeps you hooked till the end. The first one needs Anaita Shroff Adajania to take a bow as she delivers looks after looks with Bae throughout this series. If Emily took Paris, Bae took Mumbai with her Louis Vuittons and Chanels. The second being the music; it really helps the series come to life. And the third is being torn between Varun Sood and Gurfateh Pirzada. I usually get rather annoyed when the protagonist can’t come to a decision about her love life, but to choose between an eye candy and your soulmate is a tough one and I don’t blame Bae. The arc between the three of them gets as cute as it can get in a genre like this one.

Overall, Colin D’Cunha, Karan Johar and Ishita Moitra’s Call Me Bae is our own desi version of a chick-flick with a meaningful story, and amidst the plethora of horror-comedies, action and thriller films, we needed one like this desperately. It is that casual watch that you’d want to finish over the weekend and discuss it with your girlfriends! Bae being so close to her real life self probably helped Ananya Panday ace this one and might just make it a character she is remembered by for a while. 

Call Me Bae is currently streaming on Prime Video!

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