The Royals Is A Royal Bore

NETFLIX'S THE ROYALS, the series about royalty and their way of life, is a fitting example of everything wrong with the streamer. The new eight-episode show is evidence of its cautious programming and the tendency of backing projects where actors are seen more chilling by the pool than uttering lines, and shot changes are excuses for wardrobe revamps. The Royals is a hallowed congregation of abysmal writing and disinterested filmmaking, and the union is specifically designed to make only one unit suffer: the audience.

On paper, it is tempting to like something like The Royals. The stakes are constantly low, and the premise is as far-removed from reality as credible information is from major news studios in India. The aesthetic is pleasing to the eye (the neon-lit colour grading of Netflix, finally, takes a back seat) and the superfluity of the setting is a far cry from the real-life based template-driven true crime shows that have clogged every pore of the streamer’s slate. The triviality also calls for a leeway in expectations that, ideally, should serve a show like this.

But even within such undemanding ambit, The Royals fails to commit and mine the excess of its doing, that something like Four More Shots Please! It is not wholly incidental that both shows have the same set of creators (including director Nupur Asthana), but if the Amazon Prime series carried a genuine sense of female camaraderie within the gloss, then The Royals is too busy performing the frills.

In a fictional town called Morpur, the king (Milind Soman overacting even in voiceovers) has died. His will has distributed his wealth and palaces among his three children: Fizzy (Ishaan Khatter), Diggy (Vihaan Samat) and Jinnie (Kavya Trehan), his widow (Sakshi Tanwar) and his weed-smoking mother (Zeenat Aman). With money, he has also left behind an enormous debt. An entrepreneur called Sophia Kanmani Sekhar (Bhumi Pednekar) comes to their rescue. She has a start-up idea, ‘Royal B&B’, that provides the opportunity for commoners to live and share experiences with the royals (think of Airbnb but in palaces).

Stream some of Sakshi Tanwar’s superb performances on OTTplay Premium.

Using that as a starting point, the series reveals its preoccupation with depicting the clash of two worlds (one emerging and the other fading) through the attraction of the lead pair: Sophia and Fizzy. But here’s the thing: there is none. The Royals goes way and beyond to muster chemistry between the leads or even make the leads half alluring. But here’s the thing: they are not.

Khatter takes every opportunity, present to the eye or not, to unbutton his shirt. His abs have more screen time than several heroes in recent memory. Fuzzy flexes his muscles, makes out with most women in the show and yet there is so little appeal. Ditto for Pednekar. Sophia is a middle-class driven woman who is trying to make her mark in a man’s world. Her funders are sceptical of her abilities, her work partner is her ex, and she has a huge crush on her client (Fuzzy), making even her present commitment dodgy.

But apart from wardrobe changes every minute, The Royals offers her character nothing. If others lack her capability, the show doubles down on it by offering no scene that attests to her intellect. All we see Sophia do is take a jog and give herself that she can do it. Sure, you can, but how? This lack of interiority should be in line with the flossy exterior, but the series (directed by Priyanka Ghose and Asthana) is too busy packing depth in a vacuum, forgetting that nothing holds. The same is true for all the characters whose sexuality reveal is mistaken for depth, and panic attacks are touted as arcs.

The abiding question is why should we care for these people when the makers have such little regard for them? Chatgpt-written lines parade as dialogues (sample this: “affairs don’t have a future, we do”), a full-blown fashion show is treated as a climax, and a popular cooking show is ripped off with shameless impunity. Then there is Sumukhi Suresh, a better writer than the writers of the show, being reduced to comic relief.

The only part where The Royals shows effort is naming people and animals. Characters have names like Keertana, Salad, Diggy and Fizzy. Horses are called Khan and Coffee. It is disorienting to think of all the calling out to Netflix India for not making an effort, and playing it safe, this is where they have chosen to experiment.

The Royals is currently streaming on Netflix.