The Fame Game Review: Madhuri Dixit falls short in a role made for Her

There are two comebacks in Netflix’s The Fame Game. One is of the actress Anamika Anand that Madhuri Dixit plays in the series and the other is of the dancing queen herself, returning in a fully fleshed role that is supposed to set the marker for recent high-profile comebacks – Raveena Tandon, Bobby Deol, Sushmita Sen to name a few. It seems like a role so pointedly carved for Dixit you can’t help but wonder if it was written at her behest. But what is alarming is that despite more than one piece falling into place, on a conceptual level, The Fame Game is neither entertaining or thought-provoking nor is it even scandalous the way most stories about B-Town are. Most disappointing, however, is the fact that Madhuri Dixit, the queen of dance, cannot propel herself to a plane of existence where she can finally announce herself as the unrecognised actor.

The Fame Game is predominantly the story of Anamika Anand, an ageing actress in B-town who suddenly disappears.

The Fame Game is predominantly the story of Anamika Anand, an ageing actress in B-town who suddenly disappears. With flashbacks merged into the present day investigation we discover the murky underpinnings of her glittery exterior. Anand’s husband played by Sanjay Kapoor is a complicated middle-class man who has somehow landed the relationship of a lifetime – at this point let’s not even discuss where the inspiration for this role has come from. Anand has a former lover the suave but rather out-of-place Mavan Kaul, as the charismatic and broody superstar Manish Khanna. Khanna and Anand are supposed to be the on-screen couple that everyone is waiting for with bated breath to reunite on screen.

There is hence supposed to be history and sexual tension between the two but neither can be felt or gleaned. In fact, both actors seem like derivatives of different eras trying to meet the other’s logistics of intimacy half-way. It’s treacherous, to see Dixit drag herself through alien territory, in the process become the most awkward entity of a show she is supposed to shoulder.

The problem with The Fame Game is that it is far too literal.

The problem with The Fame Game is that it is far too literal. Often it feels like Dixit’s own unheard story that though it seems like a casting coupe on paper, weighs everything down. Anand’s family, including her kid and her mother have disconcerting secrets but none of these seem genuine because Anand’s character itself is washed dry of the very thought of sin. She is the purer than love innocent victim in a landscape that would have educated even most denialists about the many risks of sowing it with the seeds of faith and trust. The twisted husband, conflicted kids and a lecherous industry, are all interesting but ultimately distasteful ingredients to a personality that, even on OTT, wants to play the tender heroine. 

Dixit tries, but is eventually pulled down by a role that required, perhaps, the tenacity of a Sen, or the submission of a Tandon. It is just vintage Dixit, with new legs but no direction to run in. Her trademark dance steps feature here as well, and frankly undersell a proposition that should have abandoned everything the actress is known for.

The Fame Game could have commented on Bollywood’s inner circle yet it is manicured to look like a daily soap.

You can forgive a mystery series that if it can’t make its characters interesting can at least manipulate its audience into believing it is twisty. But The Fame Game is disappointing on that front as well, unable to crank up the tension, or make the viewer care for any of it’s many moving parts under investigation. Speaking of the investigation, Rajshri Deshpande plays the investigating cop with a complicated personal life, but rarely amounts to anything beyond her bumper sticker world views.

The Fame Game could have commented on Bollywood’s inner circle, the brutal costs of fame, the corrupting qualities of success and yet it is manicured to look like a daily soap wanting to confront a handful of difficult topics without really tearing into them. In one scene Kapoor calls out the age difference between actors of the day and the teenage actresses they romance. In another, a middleman offers Anand money for her new film in exchange for a night with her in Macau. All of these sound like tipping points that would define the tone of a series, but here they are ill-fitted necessities bereft of any conviction. Dixit looks criminally out of place in what could have been a radical takedown of stardom by the one woman who has often been reduced to a few good dance steps she once did. Or maybe, just maybe, there is a reason that Dixit has been asked to play the tender diva that men respectfully yearn (not lust) after because given the opportunity to break that ceiling, she flails, and misses the mark by a mile.