Jubilee web series review: A gripping tale of emotions set in Bollywood’s golden era
TCN Service/Mumbai
A search for Madan Kumar by Roy Talkies in post-independence Bollywood and scandalous stories surrounding Cinema sounds familiar for Jubilee web series (all episodes released).
But stellar performances by Prosenjit Chatterjee, Aditi Rao Hydari, Aparshakti Khurana, Amit Trivedi’s enchanting music make Jubilee web series a gripping tale of hard-hitting emotions.
Combined with impeccable screen presence of yesteryears ‘Ram’ Arun Govil, Ram Kapoor, Wamiqa Gabbi, this Vikramaditya Motwane web series will definitely transports you to black and white retro world.
The immaculate photography coupled with mesmerizing old style melodies that are created by Amit Trivedi adds to the storyline and further sucks you into a charming retro world of 50s.
The movie starts with Bengali manager Binod Das (Khurana) setting out to bring Jamshed Khan (Nandish Singh Sandhu), rechristened as Roy Talkies new star, Madan Kumar from Lucknow.
Srikant orders Binod to bring his wife, Sumitra (Hydari) along with Jamshed to Bombay at any cost after learning about their steamy affair.
But fate takes cruel turn, separating Sumitra and Jamshed just before they were to elope to Karachi where he is to perform a play at Khanna Theatre. As Jamshed goes missing, Khurana is launched as new star Madan Kumar, who succeeds on celluloid while riding on rags to riches sentiment among masses.
However, what happens to Madan Kumar remains unknown until the end despite Sumitra Kumari’s vow to secure justice to Jamshed, with whom she wanted to elope after leaving her aging husband.
Her search, Madan Kumar’s struggle to maintain stardom and Jay Khanna’s (Sidhant) struggle to survive in a refugee camp after escaping from Karachi, where his father Narayan (Arun Govil) used to run a theatre makes up for the rest of the story.
A bingeworthy worthy web series with nostalgic music and enchanting locale of yesteryears Bombay makes jubilee web series a strong contender to be included in must watch list.
Kudos to the team of Motwane, Trivedi and creator Atul Sabharwal for sublimely touching and showing almost all realities of post-partition India, struggles and insecurities of refugees with glimpses of retro Bollywood.
The first part of 5 episodes was released on 7 April and the remaining second part is released on 14 April.
Jubilee web series, available on Amazon Prime video, is primarily made in Hindi language but is dubbed into various languages as Tamil, Telugu, French, Spanish among others.
