Netflix’s ‘Ray’: The perks and perils of stardom

Vasan Bala and the cast of ‘Spotlight’, led by Harshvardhan Kapoor, Akansha Ranjan and Chandan Roy Sanyal, decode the layered drama about the magic and madness of movies

In Vasan Bala’s Spotlight, part of the Netflix anthology adapted from Satyajit Ray’s short stories, a popular actor, Vikram Arora, played by Harshvardhan Kapoor, is crippled with artistic insecurity despite his career being on an upswing. His professional anxieties get progressively worse when the hotel that he’s staying at is pretty much hijacked by a religious leader, Didi (Radhika Madan), who commands outsized influence on politicians, business leaders, film producers and the general populace. In the course of the film, Kapoor’s character must come to terms with the limitations of movie stardom and the realisation that between cinema and religion, two factions that enjoy a colossal hold over the Indian psyche, religion will always trump the former. While the film has an undercurrent of dark commentary, the treatment itself is lighthearted and Bala, who earlier directed the festival darling Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota, peppers the narrative with a variety of inside jokes. For instance, Kapoor’s manager, played by an astute Chandan Roy Sanyal, takes a dig at Inlaks, a housing society in Mumbai’s Versova, known for aspiring actors who are yet to break through, as well as Scrumptious, an eatery nearby largely frequented by the same crowd. In the film’s context, Sanyal’s dig is at the star who’s refusing a lucrative part that will bring in the money, the suggestion being that if he doesn’t take the gig, he may have to go back to the life of a ‘struggler.’ “It was a line improvised by Chandan,” Bala, whose last film too was seeped in cinephilia, says over a Zoom call. “All the cinephilia is almost like a personal trip for me. If nobody finds out (the references) it’s fine, the story will still hold on its own.” Which it does, except it’s a much more joyful experience once the jokes are understood. Kapoor, who plays an actor grappling with stardom, says that he was thrilled to have that experience, as it’s something that has, so far, eluded him in real life.