Masaba Masaba soon on Netflix, which marks the acting debut of dress designer Masaba Gupta, seems to be a new voice in an old jukebox. I hate to say ‘old wine in a new bottle’ because the main character that’s Masaba as Masaba is shown emptying out a booze bottle all alone in her room pretending to party at the start of the trailer.
This little self-generated tamasha sets the mood for Masaba Masaba…Why the title twice? We may well ask .Is it because the series offers twice the entertainment quotient of other series? Masaba x 2 does have a slightly sweaty glam-glitz look and feel to it. The last time I saw this look and feel on the streaming platform was in the very watchable Four More Shots Please.
There is no need to be apologetic about being part of the jetsetting crowd. At this time when they have nowhere to jet to Masaba Masaba seems a wee wistful a bit nostalgic, celebrating the times when women and men battled it out in chic hotel lobbies in outfits to match.The drinks flowed and so did the repartees. Now we have disheveled women and men speaking in disembodies voices on Zoom.
Besides Masaba who plays herself, Neena Gupta plays her mother. They are seen to be squabbling a lot and I wonder how much of their real relationship is put on film?Is this a faithful bio-pic or a flight of fancy version of reality with the emphasis on ‘fancy’? The latter, I suspect.
Besides Masaba & Mom I also saw some other talented actors hovering around for attention. Among them, the talented and always neglected Neil Bhoopalam and Satyadeep Mishra. They play strong men pretending to be props. The men are clearly dispensable here.
Masaba Masaba is a chic flick, not to be mistaken with a chick flick. It is about dressing up your dreams in the outfit of opulent conceit. Let’s see how far this conceit, so palpable in the trailer, takes the series when it streams later this month.
