‘Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives’ review: Search for an entertaining premise continues

A still from ‘Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives’

The topic of whatever happened to the Great Indian Reality Show begs some introspection on part of the industry. It is not a pressing issue, but it is symptomatic of the larger problem: the inability of Bollywood to effortlessly entertain us sans script anymore. In its third iteration now, Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives still struggles to hold the audience’s attention.

It seems to recognise the mundane routine of non-scandal its core cast has settled into. Maheep Kapoor’s arc mirrors the one she had in the second season – falling out with one of her dear friends. Except this time, she has fallen out with Seema Sajdeh, who extends her post-divorce journey of self. Little pay-off here for viewers who are met with two women who would rather not discuss all this on camera. Perhaps to counter their hesitation and fill up the screen time, this season brings in a Delhi cohort of equally uber-rich women, with the expectation that they may offer in depth what the Mumbai gang fail to bring to surface on screen.

In the first episode, Ranbir Kapoor introduces us to Riddhima Kapoor Sahni – one of the three Delhi wives. Through the season, she sits with her mother Neetu Kapoor to compare notes on how different Delhi women are from the Mumbai ones. A sign of the times to come – the show is not interested in connecting these women through their shared love of brunching and Birkins, and sets into motion a narrative of an implied friction. The title card this season reads: ‘Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives’. Does this imply that the Delhi women lead unfathomably more fabulous lives? No. It is simply a step in the direction of squeezing out drama from the diamonds that these women flaunt. It is futile.

The point of contention, for the whole season, ends up being the women trying to one-up each other, to prove that their city, and their friendship as a product of it, is better than the other one. It starts with a ball in Delhi, thrown by Shalini Passi at her home. She, along with Riddhima and Kalyani Chawla (a single entrepreneur and Seema’s Delhi equivalent), complete  the Delhi trio. Shalini turns out to be one of the more interesting characters this season. She is effortless in how she needs no prodding to put on a show for the cameras. She will, with equal earnestness, serenade a Giraffe (singing Kabhi Alvida naa Kehna), and jump into the Indian Ocean off the Mauritian coast, while admitting that the she avoids gossip as a form of skincare. At Shalini’s opulent Delhi ball is where the Mumbai women decide that they too can shock and awe the Delhi folks with an equally lavish party. For Bhavna Pandey, this becomes her arc this season, and for the next eight episodes she comes on screen to reassure us that she still has no idea how to pull this off.

A Karva Chauth party, a scandalous like on a Shobhaa De Instagram post, a Mauritius trip, and a Gauri Khan-hosted launch of some restaurant in Mumbai fill out the rest of the season. At regular intervals, a Bollywood cameo is doled out generously. Sometimes its Ananya Panday moving out of her parents’ home (but not their building), or Orry showing off his newest phone case, and once you find Saif Ali Khan on the verge of starting a Charles Dickens book club. Often, its Karan Johar playing referee to guide the next moves of his cast.

Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, following in the footsteps of the The Real Housewives franchise, or the Kardashians one (with whom they are eager to compare themselves to), sells itself as a peek into the lifestyle of rich women who can offer us uncomplicated entertainment. Despite three seasons, however, it is nowhere near what it wants to replicate. There are snatches of vulnerability to be found, like when Neelam Kothari speaks of her time after she left the film industry, but the show is otherwise not very keen to explore the ugliness of human emotions that drive audiences in droves towards reality shows. They instead substitute it with displays of wealth, but coming on the heels of a minute-by-minute coverage of the Ambani wedding, this fails to impress. A manufactured competition between Delhi and Mumbai crumbles soon when the parties are less invested in it than the audience.

At the end of the final episode, Seema promises “entertainment, entertainment, and entertainment” for the upcoming season. But, if they continue to operate with a sense of guarded, camera-conscious and perfunctory understanding of providing entertainment, the audience is better off investing their time somewhere else.

All episodes of Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives are now streaming on Netflix