Masaba Masaba
Ratings: 4.6/5
Writer: Sonam Nair, Nandini Gupta, Anupama Ramachandran,
Director: Sonam Nair
Producers: Ashvini Yardi
Genre: Docuseries
Language: English
Release Date: 28th August, 2020
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Star Cast: Masaba Gupta, Neena Gupta, Satyadeep Mishra, Neil Bhoopalam, Rytasha Rathore, Smaran Sahu, Nayan Shukla, Suchitra Pillai, Tanuj Virwani, Malavika Mohanan, Gobind Singh Mehta, Kiara Advani, Farah Khan, Gajraj Rao, Mithila Palkar, Shibani Dandekar, Dara Sandhu
Plot:
The series is a scripted version of the life of Masaba Gupta, featuring her family, her love life, and her career as a fashion designer. Masaba and her mother, Neena Gupta, play fictionalized versions of themselves.
Review:
With ‘Masaba Masaba’, director Sonam Nair tries to portray the complexities of being famous and not so famous. The 20-minute episodes are a gentle peek-a-boo into the personal lives of celebrities and how they live among us with the public eye constantly following them.
It is important to note that the show is not exactly based on the lives of the protagonist and her famous mother. The real-life controversy surrounding Neena Gupta when she gave birth to Masaba arises as a relevant context for how they interact and present their relationship in the show.
Masaba herself says “I’ve been surrounded by controversy all my life”.
The first episode starts with an Instagram post, we see Masaba updating her online followers about her moods and her day. She has a bit of an online diary, rightly so since most famous folks tend to share aspects, if not their entire lives with social media followers.
Social media is seen to be a recurring theme throughout the show. While in this day and age social media is an integral part of our lives, this aspect may educate some audiences about the effect it has on public personalities.
To depict people’s devotion to indulging in the private lives of celebrities, the entire first season surrounds the protagonist’s divorce. When a gossip columnist spills the beans about Masaba’s marriage in troubled waters, she tries her best to take control of the narrative. She fails in doing so and therefore we see the details of her journey towards healing, her coping with reality and at times wanting to ignore it.
It is relatable movie. The mother-daughter relationship: the complexities of it, struggle to find a home for self in Mumbai, Business problems weighed on by personal life problems, relationship problems: we all have faced all of it!
Another plus point is attempt to exaggerate any emotional or overdramatic scenarios in life. The tumultuous moment that Neena Gupta has faced in her career and how she overcomes it has also been touched upon. The series attempts to present a very honest version of the famous fashion designer. There’s nothing pious or ‘not-to-be-touched-upon’ aspect of her life that hasn’t been shown with at most sincerity.
The show have some insightful elements. Masaba’s debut story may not be cinematic experience but is unarguably an easy to binge-watch.
