What Is The Story About?
Disney Plus Hotstar’s new series ‘Karmma Calling’ is set in the uber-glamorous world of the rich and famous, in the pristine beach town of Alibaug. Rich, haughty and manipulative Indrani Kothari (Raveena Tandon) is the undisputed queen of Alibaug, until wealthy upstart Karma Talwar (Namrata Sheth) arrives on the scene, disrupting Indrani’s carefully-created world. Who is the enigmatic woman, and what agenda does she have against Indrani Kothari?
Karmma Calling is directed by Ruchi Narain, and produced by R.A.T Films, led by Ruchi Narain, Ashutosh Shah and Taher Shabbir.
Performances?
Raveena Tandon is good as Indrani Kothari, bringing both glamour and heft to the grey-hued character of Indrani Kothari. She lends dignity and refinement to a role that could very well have turned into a loud shrewish caricature in the hands of a lesser actor. Namrata Sheth, as Karma Talwar, barely matches up to Raveena Tandon in screen presence and charisma, not to say totally expressionless, both in tone and countenance. She’s just about average in her role.
Viraf Patel is delightful in his role of a gay billionaire. He brings the laughs and the lightness to the otherwise drab narrative. Newcomer Rachit Singh, as Vedant Koli, is good, delivering what is needed of him. Varun Sood, as Ahaan Kothari, is not only the eye-candy of the show, but has acted well too.
The performances of the rest of the cast, including Gaurav Sharma, Waluscha D’souza, Piyush Khati, Devangshi Sen, Amy Aela, Shataf Figar, Vikramjeet Virk, among others, are nothing worth writing about.
Analysis?
Disney Plus Hotstar’s Karmma Calling is the official Indian remake of American show, Revenge. At the outset, let us make it clear that we are not against the now well-entrenched trend of adapting American/Isreali/French/every-other-foreign-language shows for Indian TV. Adapting foreign shows for audiences in India is not a crime. What is a crime, though, is adapting it ad verbatim, with dialogues that are clearly just translated from the original. The plot too is adapted as is, with no attempt to tweak it as per Indian ethos and the desi milieu. The result is that the dialogues sound clunky and cringey, while the plot seems uneven and contrived.
The story begins with a murder, and the body of the dead man being found on the beach. Immediately after, the narrative moves into flashback mode. From the outset itself, we know who Karma Talwar really is, and what’s her motive behind ingratiating herself into the lives of Alibaug’s movers and shakers. It’s a calculated move, designed to keep audiences hooked onto Karma’s story, and maybe, even root for her.
Each of the starting episodes focus on one aspect of the “revenge” part of the story. Revenge is extracted in myriad ways – the messy reveal of an extramarital affair; stock market manipulation to cause the downfall of a wealth management firm; a sex scandal; a social scandal; and more. Each of the people in the eye of the drama has wronged the lady in some way; and of course, each must pay for it.
Only problem – each bit of revenge is not just too contrived, far-fetched and implausible to pull off, but also too simplistic and silly. Only if it were so easy to hack into a minister’s security system, download crucial footage, and leave no footprint! Also, how stupid can an investment whiz be to plough hundreds of crores into an unverified “stock tip”. Loopholes abound – how did an orphan living in a rehabilitation home drum up the kind of money, sophistication and contacts that Karma has? To put it succinctly, the script of Karmma Calling is nothing but an insult to the audience’s intelligence.
In the meanwhile, as revenge is being extracted, sundry characters saunter in and out of the narrative, making it even more convoluted than ever. A scheming fraudster — wait, make that two; a disloyal best friend; a besotted security chief; a love-lorn cafe owner — oh, make that two again; and finally, a badass orphan out to extract her own pound of flesh — multiple characters float in and out of the story, adding bloat to the already overdrawn storyline.
As the story plods along at its own languorous pace, the creators try hard to get us invested into the individual concerns of the characters. But the shoddy writing fails to do just that. There’s not one single character we really care about or feel for in the entire sorry mess – not even the pretty Ms. Talwar, or the poor little rich boy, Ahaan Kothari.
Namrata Sheth, in particular, is so robotic and wooden as Karma that after a while you just want to shake her out of her irritating wooden-ness. Her voice is utterly devoid of inflection throughout the narrative, and her face, devoid of expressions. It is by far the most inert, passionless performance we’ve seen in a long time.
The story begins with a murder, but never gets around to revealing the who, why or how of it. Obviously, the writers have saved the big twist for a new season — or two; hope our Karma — the real one — forgives us if we decide not to watch it.
Music And Other Departments?
Ketan Sodha’s background music is apt for the edgy storyline, even though it’s quite average overall. Bhushankumar Jain’s camerawork is mid – it simply fails to capture the essence of the place. Nikhil Parihar’s editing is okay, could have been sharper around the edges.
Highlights?
None worth mentioning
Drawbacks?
Too convoluted and bloated
Pretentious and contrived plot
Poor performances
Simplistic twists, ridden with loopholes
Did I like it?
No
Do I recommend it?
No
Karmma Calling Series Review by Binged Bureau