Tamannaah Bhatia and Diana Penty's 'Do You Wanna Partner' web-series review: To beer & best friends, with love!

Cast: Tamannaah Bhatia, Diana Penty, Jaaved Jaaferi, Nakuul Mehta, Shweta Tiwari, Rannvijay Singha, Neeraj Kabbi

Director: Archit Kumar, Collin D’Cunha

Language: Hindi

It’s never a good idea when songs and background music have to explain characters’ moods and thoughts and also the tone of the scene in a film or a show. Personally it’s always a bummer, like a speed breaker. In Do You Wanna Partner, within the first 10 minutes, we get two songs, one about mess and the other about sagas and stories. It’s a show not about companionship or queer love but two ambitious working women that unite to make their own beer. Stone Cold Steve Austin, Danny Denzongpa, and Vijay Mallya have already subscribed to Prime Video. There’s a fun idea hidden in the narrative that has the potential to brim with juiciness and delicious twists. It has a room for froth. A madcap entertainer that can strike the balance between desi and wicked fun and urban charm.

But _Do You Wanna Partner_ wishes to dig beyond. There’s a bizarre line about how understanding beer is like understanding life. I don’t think so! The ensemble is interesting. Tamannaah Bhatia, Diana Penty, Jaaved Jaaferi, Ranvijay Singha, Neeraj Kabbi can be competent actors when given a material that deserves their tenacity and talent. An OTT Kabbi’s turn here as a honcho is a reminder of how effective he was in the breakout show Paatal Lok where he played a conniving and callous journalist. It’s all about the numbers after all, breaking news or beer. There’s another line about how not to mix business and friendship. Band Baaja Baaraat anyone? And coincidentally, both the films are set in the capital.

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Another point. Every time a character brags about how it will be promoted professionally and things will change, you know what will transpire. I still get flashbacks of Akshay Kumar from Aitraaz and John Abraham from Desi Boyz. One was a victim of a sexually starved femme fatale and the other of recession. And Penty? Maybe a sycophantic employee! And why would she be promoted when the title of the show is about having a partner and the trailer has already given away how the two ladies will be their own bosses and make their own beer!

The idea is ripe. Two women on an entrepreneurial journey wanting to make it. A Shark Tank-like pitch scene elicits amusement. So does a scene involving E-bribe. People fond of the drink will have instant relatability. But what about teetotallers? They may savour the show as fast food that can be fancied and forgotten. And the show does have its moments of farce. A running gag about Penty being mistaken for a man due to a shrill voice turns into a full-blown ingenious fragment that exposes the misogynistic nature of the business world. And the actress displays a fine sense of timing. Bhatia needs to cut loose a little more, but because her reason to cross the Rubicon stems more from emotional reasons than entrepreneurial, she chooses to stay the restrained one.

The show coming from the kitchens of Karan Johar’s production house must possess its quirks and qualities. So the frames are delightful and dazzling. Shweta Tiwari gets a catty and slow motion entry. It’s hard to decide whether _Do You Wanna Partner_ is a blend of what the director wishes to say and what the producer wants or the two are at odds with each other. However, Jaaved Jaaferi chews up the scenery with a role whose whimsical pleasures could’ve been pulled off by nobody but by this veteran. He has a memory problem. He is an actor. The ladies hire him for a sheer and spotless con-job. Jaaferi, now rechristened as David Jones, gets it perfect despite the imperfect prep ala NRI Sethi from Dubai in the charming Khosla Ka Ghosla. The show may be nowhere close to the effortlessness and fragrance of that 2006 comedy, Jaaferi more than makes up for it, especially in a scene where he attempts to seduce the batty Tiwari.

But the show cannot escape its inevitable cliches. From Band Baaja Baaraat to Khosla Ka Ghosla, Do You Wanna Partner morphs into Badmaash Company. The brush with quick success that leads to expected squabbles. There are new conflicts and challenges every episode to keep the momentum and at times mundaneness going. And it also has a wrong title. Just like how the girls get the name of the beer wrong. They rename it to Jugaaru. Why not give it a Hindi name to make it more fun and easy to pronounce? Sometimes, there’s a lot in a name.

Rating: 3 (out of 5 stars)

Do You Wanna Partner is now streaming on Prime Video