‘The Royals’ Series Review: All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go

Creator: Rangita Pritish Nandy, Ishita Pritish Nandy

Directors: Priyanka Ghose, Nupur Asthana

Writers: Neha Veena Sharma, Vishnu Sinha, Iti Agarwal

Cast: Bhumi Pednekar, Ishaan Khatter, Vihaan Samat, Sakshi Tanwar, Zeenat Aman, Kavya Trehan, Nora Fatehi

Streaming on: Netflix

Language: Hindi

If you've followed Hindi web shows long enough, you'll know that “fun & frothy” is streaming lingo (and euphemism) for “empty, expensive, glossy, puerile, performative and garishly produced young-adult-but-Bollywood-scale entertainment”. It's a very specific subgenre of designer nothingness — the storytelling equivalent of a brown mannequin at a MET gala whose theme is ‘Sexy and Flawed’. Think Four More Shots Please!, Eternally Confused and Eager for Love, Mismatched, Jee Karda, Call Me Bae and now, The Royals: a series so frothy and stretched that a dust storm wrecked my room, the wifi broke, I fell violently ill and a war broke out in the real world during its 8-episode run.

Between topless Polo matches, bronzed bodies, golden bikinis, horses named Coffee and Khan, a prince named Salad, costume balls that’d send The Great Gatsby and Babylon spiralling into nervous breakdowns, dry pool parties, awkward dances, awkward flirting, fashion shows that look like style-icon functions gone wrong, a cooking show whose resemblance to Masterchef is purely coincidental, sex scenes that morph into skincare ads, queer subplots that grow on trees, man-child tantrums that put Animal to shame, dinner-table scenes filmed with the spontaneity of Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, #RichLivesMatter conflicts that Disneyfy The Crown, and bad business decisions that’d turn Shark Tank into Dolphin Tank, The Royals manages to be unfunny, uncharismatic and uncool all at once. It’s no mean feat for a production whose budget could fund a dozen mid-scale films, 50 TVF shows and half a Tom Cruise action set-piece.

A still from 'The Royals'

You can almost touch the lifestyle algorithm. The Royals opens with girl-boss entrepreneur Sophia (Bhumi Pednekar) on a sultry jog in Sri Lanka. The gold-plated exposition means that the voice in her head goes “You got this, Sophia, you’re the CEO of India’s best hospitality startup”. Seconds later, she’s flashing a middle finger (while grinning — she’s always grinning) to the Prince of Morpur, Aviraaj “Fizzy” Singh (an over-swaggy Ishaan Khatter), while he’s riding a horse shirtless for a photo-shoot on the beach. His shirtlessness remains the protagonist of this show. This is their first of many meet-cutes in a situationship where the ship keeps sailing. They have the most random fights and fallouts, all with the sexual tension of siblings trapped at a cosplay enclave.

Sophia soon floats her idea of a ‘Royal B&B’ experience to her board members — where “aamkumaris (commoners)” can pay to live in actual palaces with blue-blooded Rajkumars. As it turns out, the royals of Morpur are newly broke and could do with the money from this allegedly profitable deal (the math is not math-ing, but who am I to question them?). Translation: Sophia and Aviraaj hook up, spit and split a few more times. She has 6 months until the ‘launch’ of something big — I’m not sure what exactly — that will change the fate of her company and the fading fortunes of the family. Aviraaj was supposed to go back to New York and live his best playboy life, but the allure of being topless at the drop of a hat — as the next Maharaja, no less — is hard to resist. He stays, she slays.

Zeenat Aman in 'The Royals'

The Royals is like that swanky, overstaffed office where everyone must pretend to work. Multiple character arcs create the illusion of a plot; blink and you’ll miss the arrival of a new cast member. Vihaan Samat is Diggy, Avi’s younger brother with metrosexual-chef ambitions. Kavya Trehan is Ginnie, the closeted baby sister who falls for Sophia’s colleague (Lisa Mishra). Sakshi Tanwar is Rani Sa, the royal widow torn between a dead ex-husband (Milind Soman), a sly ex-lover (Alyy Khan) and a corny movie star (Chunky Panday). Zeenat Aman is the pot-smoking, gummy-chewing Queen Mother. Udit Arora is Sophia’s ex and business partner who spends the show sullenly watching her get it on with the hunky prince. Dino Morea, Nora Fatehi, Yashaswini Dayama and Luke Kenny also drop in and out. The Royals’ criminal wastage of resources is best evident through its use of Sumukhi Suresh, the standup comic and writer behind Pushpavalli, one of Indian streaming’s finest moments. Suresh here is reduced to the bit-part of Sophia’s bumbling assistant, despite being the most talented creator (by far) on the needlessly opulent sets.

At one point, a not-Masterchef judge does the usual schtick of tasting Diggy’s dish and faking drama — he throws the plate to the floor and yells “disgusting!” before adding the punchline: “disgustingly good!”. It’s no surprise that The Royals aces the unseriousness of such portions — it has the body of reality television and celebrity-adjacent entertainment, but without any of the gossipy goodness. For all its naked commitment to pretty people in snazzy clothes and exotic places, the emotional inertia of the writing, performances and staging is a sight to behold. So many scenes and entry shots are simply there to pad up the visual stakes and become so-bad-it’s-good social media memes. Everyone’s speaking in Hindi, but it sounds like their third language. The chemistry between characters is so romcom-coded that you’d think they’re auditioning for the role of the background score. Good looks — a subjective concept at best — cannot compensate for a lack of personality. An entire genre of this exists, but it doesn’t excuse film-makers from presenting modern life as a parody of modern life.

A still from 'The Royals'

It doesn’t help that the lead couple is insufferable. Why do Aviraaj and Sophia keep yelling at each other, rejecting one another and walking away under the guise of torrid passion? Why do they eat each other’s mouths to show that attraction knows no logic? Why can’t they sound like decent people? The main character energy of Aviraaj — a rich brat searching for trauma and daddy issues in six-pack abs — makes you yearn for the elegant prince from Khoobsurat (2014). His moods are not moods, they’re vibes. The pressure of becoming the next king feels hypothetical; his penchant for breaking down, acting tortured for no reason and playing the victim (when in doubt, lose the shirt) is absurd, even by the standards of Bollywood alpha-masculinity. Sophia makes you yearn for Tara Khanna, Sobhita Dhulipala’s flawed-but-humane entrepreneur from Made In Heaven. She’s bad at her job, makes the worst personal choices, and settles for assuaging the ego of her frog-prince. The mismatched actress-character combo is all too obvious: Pednekar looks remarkably uncomfortable as the upscale charmer, often entering tantrums-in-Love-Aaj-Kal-2 territory.

How, then, can one root for the royal mess that these two are? Their love language is curated lust — and all the lavish fundraising and auctioning in the world can’t rescue them from themselves. There is no coherence to their bond; they just choose to say or do whatever might look fancy on screen. I’d have sooner paid to watch a stoner comedy featuring the Zeenat Aman and Sumukhi Suresh characters (both of whom are forgotten by the show), two women who’d probably chuckle at the innuendo of a whispery stable song where Sophia gets wet and Aviraaj covers her with his jacket and shows her his horse. Coffee will neigh, Khan will slay, and they will be ridden into the sunset. Title: ‘Royal Rumble’ in the hay.