“Please ‘gram the hell out of us,” a character in The Royals (directed by Priyanka Ghose and Nupur Asthana) remarks and that seems to be the attitude the writers have taken to the show – everything is perfectly curated to look like an aesthetic feed, the colours complement each other, the locations are nothing short of picturesque. Every single person is dressed to the nines – the ‘royals’ in question are decked in jewelry even at the dinner table.
Perhaps it’s meant to be a part of the shtick, to isolate the viewer from their lives and then pull the rug from beneath their and our feet by telling us they’re broke and in debt. The scion of the ‘royals’ of the fictional Morpur Aviraaj Singh (Ishaan Khatter) aka Fizzy wants nothing to do with the crown or its legacy, a role his brother Digvijay (Vihaan Samat) is more than happy to step into and one their younger sister Jinnie (Kavya Trehan) seemingly isn’t even considered for.
Aviraaj returns to their palace (one of a dilapidated many) for the reading of his father’s will and perhaps out of a sense of responsibility (dim as it may be) to his mother Padmaja (Sakshi Tanwar). The royal family is completed by the matriarch Bhagyashree Devi (Zeenat Aman) who spends most of her time lounging with a ‘gummy’ or delivering (meant to be) hilarious one-liners.
The will reading contains more than one surprise for the family – the most devastating being the news of them being in debt and having no access to the late king’s material possessions. Those, he handed over to a mysterious ‘Maurice’. In such a bleak scenario – though the show’s bright colour palette and fashion magazine-worthy glitz doesn’t let that sink in – a ‘hospitality start-up CEO’ comes to the rescue.
Enter Sophia Kanmani Shekhar (Bhumi Pednekar), the CEO of ‘Work Potato’ (I thought the name was fun) who is on the hunt for palaces that she can turn into a ‘Royal B&B’. What’s their USP, you ask? She & her team want to bridge the gap between the royals and the common person – the ‘rajkumaris’ and the ‘aam kumaris’ under one roof. The masses would stay at the palace with the royal family. Would a business like this actually have a broad appeal, especially with the seemingly limitless budget they seem to operating on?
That’s a question you’re not meant to ask and honestly, a rom-com-starved part of me is okay with letting that go.
The first episode is spent introducing the characters and this premise and establishing a typical (tried-and-tested and thoroughly enjoyed) enemies-to-lovers trope. After a brief meeting, Sophia and Aviraaj simply can’t stand each other but there is apparently an undeniable pull between them – as far as rom-coms go, it’s a recipe for success.
From the get-go, The Royals makes it clear that it isn’t interested in anything other than skin-deep reflections – the very idea of the ‘Royal B&B’ is rooted in the idea of a class divide; one between the ‘royals’ and the commoners. But this idea doesn’t get enough stay in the show to actually add any layers or importance – while I understand that the show is trying to remain fun & frothy (there’s nothing wrong with that), it takes a lot away from the story.
The show is fun, for the most part I would dare say, but there are parts where the superficial, frothy telling begins to border on hollow. If the show had considered rooting itself more firmly in the topics it’s clearly on the cusp of exploring, it would have added depth to the story and to Sophia’s character and motivations. Without it, the characters, while meant to be on two sides of a class divide, come across as entitled copies of each other separated perhaps by a paper-thin layer of privilege.
The most interesting character (with great help from the actor’s fabulous performance) is Padmaja. The queen stuck between a promise to her late husband and the responsibility of reweaving her home together while comically mourning the loss of her diamonds and beloved paintings is a tragic and memorable character. And when the writing inevitably makes her run from one scene to another with little to no breathing room, it’s Tanwar’s magnetic screen presence that saves it.
The writing, courtesy Neha Veena Sharma, Vishnu Sinha and Iti Agarwal, has its moments – for the first few episodes, the pacing is easy on the mind and The Royals does start to seem like fun, if not thought-provoking, viewing. But as the episodes progress, things start to unravel – conflicts start to feel repetitive and even Khatter and Pednekar’s incredibly earnest attempts to make their characters likeable don’t manage to save the show from hitting a monotonous rut.
Both the leads are actors capable of such complexity and nuance (as proven from their earlier roles) but they both are stuck trying to find meaning in inconsistent character writing. It explains why their chemistry works well when they’re dealing with their emotions for each other in isolation but when they must interact, the dialogues let them down.
And when the two characters with the most screen time essentially start moving in circles, your eye begins to wander to the other characters that populate this royal setting. There are, naturally, the exes – Sophia’s co-founder Udit Arora who honestly seems like the perfect balancing act to her character and Ayesha (Nora Fatehi) as the alluring heiress with her eyes set on what she sees as an ideal match with Aviraaj.
Then there’s a full-of-himself yet kind superstar (Chunky Panday), Aly Khan in a role that would be spoiled by description alone, Yashaswini Dayama, Luke Kenny, and Sophia’s teammates Lisa Mishra and Sumukhi Suresh. If there’s one thing The Royals gets spot-on, it’s the casting. Every single actor fits their roles perfectly, making the characters more watchable despite mostly one-tone characterisation.
Of the lot, Lisa Mishra and Sumukhi Suresh are the most memorable – Mishra for her incredible chemistry with Pednekar (almost rivaling that between the leads) and Suresh because she’s easily the funniest addition to the cast. There are moments where you can hear her voice far off in the background and it’s more interesting than what’s going on in the foreground. Sadly, her comedic timing and range are wasted by reducing her character to a ‘type’ (much like what happens to Zeenat Aman who deserved more screen time and a much better written character).
I did go through all eight episodes in one sitting though, if that counts for anything – it makes for (un)serious, sometimes engaging viewing (some moments will even catch you off guard by succeeding at satire). The show has its moments especially with performers like Vihaan Samat and Sakshi Tanwar bringing balance to an otherwise haphazard telling.
The one thing that is the show’s undoing is its misunderstanding of what Sophia and Aviraaj’s relationship could be – they’re both meant to be strong-headed characters, neither capable of backing down from a fight and yet more than capable of patience when the other needs it.
The few scenes where we see that happen – when one steps up when the other can’t – are the ones that work the most in making the ‘rom(ance)’ more believable and something worthy of interest. Their relationship is supposed to be all about the clash and the sizzle but these are characters that would benefit from tenderness. And that is something the entire show could’ve benefitted from – trust in the calmer moments in life.