I haven’t really paid much attention to web series. I knew they were a thing but until I saw America Mapillai recently, I didn’t realize just how satisfying they could be.
America Mapillai is a web series I saw on Zee5 recently. And I liked it so much, and viewing a web series is such a novel experience (to me) that I thought I’d share about America Mapillai and Zee5 on the blog.
About Zee5
Zee5 is a video on demand website run by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited. It was launched in India on February 14, 2018 with content in 12 languages. The website also has an app, the Zee5 app.
I checked it out recently and I am impressed at just how much local content they feature. Their tag line says Apni Bhasha Mein Feel Hai! and it’s so true! While I enjoy English programming for their technical superiority and their willingness to tackle any topic, the movies or serials I love almost always are in hindi and tamil. I guess those are the languages that touch my emotional core the most.
America Mapillai
America Mapillai is an 8-part web series directed by Praveen Padmanabhan. It stars the likes of Leela Samson, Raja Krishnamoorthy, Gokul Anand, Arjun Chidambaram, Namita Krishnamoorthy, Sruthi Hariharan, Delhi Ganesh and Rakesh Ram.
The series which offers a rather playful take on the concept of the American Mapillai stereotype depicted in contemporary films and television serials.
Here’s the synopsis from the Zee5 site:
A straight guy who is commitmentphobic pretends to be gay in order to avoid getting married. Ganesh seeks out his gay friend Karthik for help while struggling to come to terms with his own sexuality.
You can see this trailer to get an idea of what this series is about.
My review
This web series consists of eight episodes with each episode approximately 10 minutes long. Yes, that’s right. You could binge-watch this entire series in an hour’s time! It took me a couple of episodes to settle down into this new format, but by the time I finished watching the entire series, I felt very comfortable with this style of viewing.
It’s almost like reading a short story – the same satisfaction of a complex story compacted into a short and intense timeline.
Anyway on to my review.
As the synopsis says, the series revolves around an America-returned guy Ganesh (Arjun Chidambaram) who lies about his sexuality to avoid the arranged marriage scene his father is trying to get him into. The series starts off quite funny. I loved the back and forth between father and son as they clash over the topic of Ganesh’s arranged marriage.
Each episode is named after a color – red, violet, and so on. Each color denotes the theme of a particular episode. I thought this was quite a nice and unusual idea of presenting the story – something I haven’t seen tried before.
Another novel experience was the wonderfully muted characters. Unlike the loud and aggressive characters I see on Tamil serials on Sun TV, the characters in the web series are pretty refined, natural, and non-cliched. Also, there are only a limited number of characters – making it easy for each one to stand out in their own way. There is a hilarious best friend who acts in serials, a refreshingly progressive aunt, a sister who lives in a musical world of her own and of course, the father who lets go of the world he understands for love of his son.
While there are plenty of conflicts between all these characters, their love for each other is obvious. Ganesh’s love for his father shines through. However, his love does not blindly make him jump into matrimony. His father is very keen for his son to enjoy wedded bliss. However, slowly he realizes that brainwashing his son into marriage would be disastrous for all concerned. My favorite character though has to be Karthik (the gay friend). His is a difficult role (a gay guy pretending to be a gay boyfriend?), but he manages everything with ease. The chemistry between Karthik and Ganesh is also believable, at first a make-believe relationship, but soon slowly evolving into a genuine understanding of each other’s quirks.
I should also make a special mention of the music in this series. No, there is no traditional song and dance. However, the protagonist’s sister is a huge fan of Western rock music and I really enjoyed watching the characters bond together over their love of classic western rock.
Last thoughts
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by just how mature and open-minded this web series is. It’s nice to see that Indian production houses are leading the way in providing experimental and diverse content. Even nicer is to see that this web series is rated 5 stars on the Zee5 site indicating that our audience is also getting mature, open-minded, and accepting of such type of content.
Recommended viewing age
This web series is fairly lighthearted. There is no sex or violence. However, the concepts it deals with are adult. I think ages 18 and above would be a good age recommendation – simply because of the nature of the topic.
