‘The Baker and the Beauty’ series review: Good old fairytale romance, and some more

Santhosh Shobhan scores in this Telugu web series showcasing urban relationships and family ties

Simply put, the story of the new Telugu web series The Baker and The Beauty (streaming on Aha) is a fairytale romance between a baker from a middle-class family and a female actor whose every move is tracked by the paparazzi. As one of the characters describes it, it’s a story of a boy living near the Jubilee Bus Station in Secunderabad and a girl in Jubilee Hills. The broad story is on the lines of what we have seen in the English rom-com Notting Hill (1999) and more recently in the Telugu film Sammohanam (2018). So when I learnt that the new Telugu series is an adaptation of a similarly-named Israeli series by Assi Azar, I was curious and watched it. The Telugu series is a faithful adaptation, down to choosing similar episode titles — the ‘Artichoke Soup’ becomes ‘Mushroom Soup’ in the Indian context. The Telugu series appropriates the happenings to the cultural milieu of Hyderabad. Appreciably, it doesn’t water down the original content. It’s a story of the baker as much as it is the story of his two siblings, and touches upon aspirations, awkward family ties and the acceptance of same-sex relationships. The 10-episode series, averaging at 30-35 minute duration each, is a slick rom-com that comes alive with a line-up of talent. The charming Santhosh Shobhan plays baker Vijay Krishna Dasaripalle who trades his fine art dreams to help run his father Venkateshwarlu’s (Srikanth Iyengar) bakery. Vijay lives with his father, mother Padma (Jhansi), brother Vikram (Sangeeth Shobhan) and sister Meera (Sai Swetha). The brother can be silly, annoying and cringe-inducing all at once and the mother, a livewire who is so vocal that it would be impossible to hold secrets. The somewhat brooding sister, though, has her own secrets. The close-knit family is surrounded by friendly but overtly inquisitive neighbours, led by Suseela (Tarusha Saxena).