Bhaag Beanie Bhaag (Netflix)
Starring Swara Bhaskar, Ravi Patel , Varun Thakur
Rating: *** ½
Besides being trolled by Kangana Ranaut, what is the scariest experience in the world? Being up there on stage all alone trying to make a roomful of drunk cynics laugh at your jokes. That’s what stand-up comedians do. That’s what Beanie Bhatnagar wants to do in life,much to the chagrin of her anxious parents.
There is not much of plot to go by here. We’ve seen the convoluted lives of struggling stand-ups in films and serials as varied as Funny People and, nearer home, Four More Shots Please! Lack of originality is not a problem here. Bhaag Beanie Bhaag is surprisingly charming warm and inviting. It doesn’t take a stab at anything more serious than an engaging 6-episodes in the life a working girl who just wants to do what she wants to, even if it means running away from her own roka ceremony.
At least no one can ask our headstrong Beanie, “Kisnne tumhe ROKA?” Ha ha.
Infectiously relatable , and filmed with a giggly gusto, this one just carried you forward with its zest for life on the live stage. It would be no exaggeration to say that Swara Bhaskar is the life and soul of the show. She looks radiant and adds dollops of sun-dipped charm to her part.
She has splendid support from two real-life stands-ups Varun Thakur and Ravi Patel who play the two men in her life. Patel specially is such a natural, shooting off his NRI no-Hindi lines with an an unrehearsed sparkle. Sadly his role comes to a rather abrupt and inglorious end.
The best off-stage moments are between Swara and Patel, the cricket break in Episode 3 ending in a kiss being the piece de resistance of this likeable show. They share an easygoing camaraderie which gets heavyhanded later. The redoubtable Girish Kulkarni and Mona Ambegaonkar are superbly comfortable as Beanie’s parents , though I must say the quirky ‘fun’ parents of the heroine are getting to be a bit of a cliché in the serials.
Incidentally since the conversations in the series are in Hinglish, every time a character speaks in English we get a Hindi translation(in the Roman script) of the English language. So ‘fuck’ is translated as ‘Laanat Hai’. To that I can only say, WTLH!