Sooni Taraporevala’s new show is about a group of young women from Kolkata whose tongues are as sharp as their bodies are fluid. Waack Girls uses the kinetic dance style called “waacking” that originated in the queer community in America in the 1970s as a metaphor for a journey from uncertainty to self-assertion.
The Prime Video series, which is in Hindi with English and Bengali thrown in, has two main protagonists. Lopa (Rytasha Rathore), the openly lesbian daughter of a wealthy builder (Nitesh Pandey), wants to try her hand at talent management. To the annoyance of her family and her girlfriend Leena (Sayasha Pillai), Lopa devotes considerable time and money towards helping ace waacker Ishani set up a dance group.
Ishani (Mekhola Bose) lives with her grandfather in a rambling mansion. The grandfather is the Shakespearean actor Subroto Mitra – a possible nod to the legendary cinematographer Subrata Mitra, who shot Satyajit Ray’s early films. The patriarch is played by Barun Chanda, himself a Ray alum.
Another Ray connection pops up in Ishani’s neighbour and friend Manik, which was also Ray’s pet name. Manik (Achintya Bose) persuades Ishani to accept Lopa’s proposal to lead a waacking group from oblivion to virality.
Like Lopa and Ishani, each of the troupe members has a point to prove and attitude to spare. At least of them have eye roll-producing mothers.
Tess (Chrisann Pereira) is fed up with Abby (Lilette Dubey), whose gambling addiction has stacked up debt. Michke (Priyam Saha) is comfortable with her girth in a way that her mother (Nivedita Bhattacharjee) simply isn’t.
Anumita (Ruby Sah) happily ditches her gymnastics training for waacking, to the dismay of her parents. Fashion designer LP (Anasua Chowdhury) produces haute couture knockoffs but can barely handle her expenses.
The women come together almost accidentally, stick together grudgingly, and eventually develop a sisterhood that sees them through minor and major crises. Ishani’s concern for Subroto’s health runs parallel to Lopa’s rage over her homophobic parents. The destinies of these two women, who are as similar in their headstrongness as they are different in economic status, intersect in ways that are made apparent to viewers but not the characters.
Taraporevala has written Waack Girls along with Iyanah Bativala and Ronny Sen. Over nine episodes, the writers layer predictable plotting beats with engaging humour and flashes of spirited rebellion. While the dancers are in the mainframe, secondary characters, such as the patrician Subroto, the flitty Abby and the ever-helpful Manik, stand out too.
For the most part, the series deftly navigates its dance between skill and heart, displays of technical virtuosity and affecting moments. However, there is avoidable repetition over the lengthy episodes. The show ends on a contrived cliffhanger that challenges credulity, given how social media-savvy the group is. In bringing us to the precipice, the makers demand a leap of faith that isn’t entirely successful.
Igor Kropotov’s warm-toned camerawork captures Kolkata at its camera-friendliest (Theia Tekchandaney’s costumes enhance the overall vibrancy). But apart from attractive locations and the excuse to speak Bengali, the city contributes no specific or rooted ideas for how or why waacking has found a home here.
The six women could actually be residents of any globalised city. Waack Girls endears us to each of these familiar characters through attentive detailing.
In the process of finding themselves, the women learn to re-calibrate their expectations and work with each other. The evolving group dynamic is punctuated by thrillingly filmed dance sequences.
Hands whirl in the air and feet move faster than the eye can see. While waacking has personal meaning for Ishani, it’s a form of expression for the other women – which Taraporevala and her crew capture with zest and care.
Rytasha Rathore leads a raft of heartfelt performances. Rathore takes full advantage of Lopa’s richly developed arc, delivering a character with sass and soul.
Mekhola Bose, who has also choregraphed the series along with Yoonji Lee, is brilliant on the dance floor and convincing off it, especially in her tender scenes with her beloved grandfather. Among the other actors, Chrissan Pereira and Achintya Bose have some memorable moments. Priyam Saha has the perfect deadpan reaction to her mother’s soap operatics.
Lillete Dubey has a charming cameo as the Anglo-Indian Abby, who threatens to “hypnotise the hypnotist” who might cure her of her gambling fix. Given what Dubey comes up with in just a handful of scenes, we believe her.
Also read:
‘Waack Girls’ is about ‘young women standing their ground’, says creator Sooni Taraporevala