‘Jee Karda’ series review: Tamannaah Bhatia anchors a glib affair

Tamannaah Bhatia in a still from ‘Jee Karda’

Jee Karda is the third series offering from Dinesh Vijan’s Maddock Films. Theatrically speaking, the banner figures among our snappiest — they were the first movers on zombie comedy (Go Goa Gone), education satire (Hindi Medium) and horror-comedy (Stree) in India. But their advances in the streaming arena have been pitifully slow. 2021’s Chutzpah, with its frantic social media talk, felt like a response to a dozen youth-oriented shows on YouTube. My hopes rose with Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo, a drug show carried along by director Homi Adajania’s wit and whimsicality. But Jee Karda occupies a strange middle ground; jagged of emotions and sporadically involving, yet packaged in the same glibly algorithmic mould that’s becoming the mark of Indian streaming shows.

The series centers on seven childhood friends traipsing dazedly through adulthood. Rishabh (Suhail Nayyar) proposes to Lavanya (Tamannaah Bhatia), his girlfriend of 12 years. Their parents meet and wedding preparations are commenced. Lavanya, or Lavu, has recently been promoted to Senior Architect; Rishabh, a well-to-do cafe owner, is awaiting funding for an app. They have a lot on their minds, which might explain Lavanya developing cold feet a few months before the wedding. But there’s more.

In a flashback, we learn that Lavanya once had a crush on Arjun, Rishabh’s best friend from school, now a viral Punjabi singer in Canada. Arjun or AG (Aashim Gulati) flies down to Mumbai to be with his mum (Dolly Ahluwalia). Lavanya, in her confusion, reaches out to him. They don’t hook up immediately — she is more concerned about the compromises she’ll have to make with Rishabh’s affluent but socially-conservative family — but the possibility ticks away like a time bomb under the story.

Lavanya, Rishabh and Arjun are barely interesting enough characters to sustain a complicated love triangle. But the other characters are thinner sketches still. They feel like hangers-on accorded one-liner conflicts and identities. Sheetal (Samvedna Suwalka) and Sameer (Malhar Thakar) are married; they live in a joint family in a cramped 2BHK apartment, struggling to find intimacy. Preet (Anya Singh) is a counselor seeking romantic fulfillment (her first date, in a mind-numbingly predictable touch, turns out to be a client). Melroy (Sayan Banerjee) is the token gay friend stuck in a toxic relationship. I’m not suggesting queer relationships in homophobic north India aren’t frequently abrasive; I just wish Hindi films and shows found more in them than just abuse and dysfunction.

Then there is Shahid, a poor lad who never fully belonged in the gang, and is played, with meta-fictional resonance, by co-writer Hussain Dalal (do writers ever belong?). Shahid, now an ordinary school teacher, gives a speech calling out the ‘privilege’ of his rich pupils. It rings false; Jee Karda, like Four More ShotsPlease! and Made in Heaven before it (all on Prime Video), is ensconced in the world of the ultra-rich, even as it presents a muted critique. Much of the series unfolds in posh high-rises and hotels. “We get photography awards in New York for this,” a date says entering Shahid’s home. Tellingly, the one time he needs his friends in his locality, only one of them shows up.

Hussain and his brother Abbas Dalal can write funny dialogue. We get glimmers of this in Jee Karda — “First party, then make songs about partying, then play those songs at parties,” Arjun whines. But the tart lyricism is derailed by a need for ‘youth connect’. Almost all the characters talk in keywords: ‘swag’, ‘bro’, ‘true that’, ‘roofied’, ‘bridezilla’, ‘guacamole’. Writers in Hollywood are protesting a potential AI takeover. Here, flesh-and-blood hires are showing the way.

Taj’s Aashim Gulati — his hedonism teleported from 16th century Mughal Empire to modern Mumbai — moves and jigs with an easy swagger. Tammanaah Bhatia convincingly draws out the mounting anxiety and exasperation of Lavanya, but not much else. Suhail Nayyar, as in Sharmaji Namkeen, is enjoyable as the harried square. And it’s always a treat to see Simone Singh, playing another progressive, ‘with it’ mother (“It’s like the end of an era,” her character sighs, calmly and regally, when informed of her menopause).

In one scene, the girls in the gang huddle to spitball ideas for a birthday party. They discard the wilder suggestions before settling for a pop-culture costume party. “It’s sasta, sundar, tikau,” they all agree. This is how I imagine most writers’ rooms to be functioning across streaming platforms and production houses in India. Go for what’s cheap and easy, and throw in some pop-culture references.

Jee Karda is currently streaming on Prime Video