![]() For instance, novelist Arya Iyer (a woefully miscast R. If the ambition was to be Veep, the craft – of rhythm, perspective, timing, acting, editing, camerawork – is absent. And to think, even a fictional Netflix – from the real Netflix series – saw it coming. Having a subplot about Netflix rejecting the writer’s pitch because “the jokes don’t land” is not meta but ignorant. Having a semi-autobiographical protagonist who’s a misanthropic writer with a theory about everything is not edgy but annoying. Writing in gags about Muslims, gays, trans people, maids, drivers, nationalists, kids, Bengalis, MeToo, women, wives, feminists and bodies under the pretext of “but this is how we really are!” is not brave but reckless posturing. At least the badness of Call My Agent evoked an errant child pretending to be an adult Decoupled is an adult that pretends to pass off arrogance as unfiltered honesty. The consequence is one of the most randomly combative shows on Indian streaming in 2021 – or ever. The snark is played for comic laughs, not sarcastic sniggers. Decoupled, directed by Hardik Mehta ( Kaamyaab, Roohi ), is not just buried by its insufferable humour but also by the jarring dissonance between the film-making and writing: It’s a satire that forgets to be satirical. It also had a director who got the misanthropic gaze. Serious Men, the film based on Joseph’s 2010 novel, was self-aware enough to satirize the social satire. But the joke is on them for assuming the joke is on us. ![]() It seems like the sort of middle-aged thing that’s conceived to laugh at us for judging it. The problem is, if I call this series offensive, pretentious, smug, tone-deaf, unfunny, sexist, patronizing and oversmart – all of which it actually is – Decoupled is the kind of thing that seems designed to fault the viewer for being a woke, liberal and hypocritical snob. Decoupled is about an affluent Gurgaon couple flirting with the idea of divorce, but running through the show is an inexplicable desire to provoke for the heck of it. ![]() Phrases like “honest wetness,” “happy men are just people with low standards” and “love is blowjob without condom” emerge in the final episode without a hint of irony. Decoupled, the new Netflix series written and created by him, is an empty vessel of modern Josephisms. A look at his work – columns, essays, books – from the last five years will reveal a great thinker getting consumed by not just his own image but also by the urgency to think in today’s India. Now Manu Joseph writes so that people react. Madhavan, Surveen Chawla, Atul Kumar, Mukesh S.
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