History as Entertainment
From Book to Binge-Watch
For today’s substack, I thought I’d do something a bit different — a roundup of some of the historical TV and streaming series, all but one based on a book, that my hubs, Raj and I have enjoyed over the past few years.
Jubilee (Amazon Prime, 2023) — Set in 1947 India and its aftermath, this luscious, sudsy drama sets the Bombay film industry against the tumult of Partition.1
One month prior to Indian independence and the subdivision of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, Shrikant Roy, owner of the preeminent Bombay film studio, Roy Talkies, has found a fresh face to launch as “Madan Kumar,” his new leading man. Charismatic Shakespearean actor, Jamshed Khan has crushed his screen test but is having second thoughts. He accepts an alternate offer to join a classical theater company in Karachi run by the famous Khanna family.
But Roy is a man used to getting what, and who, he wants. He sends his actress wife and business partner, Sumitra Kumari, to Lucknow to close the deal. Instead, she and Jamshed fall in love and make plans to run away. Roy next sends his projector operator and chief stooge, Binod Das (secretly, an aspiring actor) to bring both Jamshed and Sumitra back to Bombay. En route, Binod encounters Jay Khanna, an aspiring theatrical director and dashing rogue whom we first meet dancing the jitterbug with young Englishwomen in the rail station’s first-class refreshment room. Jay is likewise headed to Lucknow on a mission: to escort Jamshed to his family’s theater company in Karachi. Before he can, Partition riots break out in Lucknow, imploding Roy’s master plan and irreversibly altering the lives of everyone involved.
The inspo for Jubilee is the legendary Bombay Talkies. Founded in 1934 by husband-wife duo Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani, Bombay Talkies was one of the earliest and most successful film studios in India. The studio was responsible for launching stars like Ashok Kumar and Dilip Kumar, among others.2
Things I loved: Pretty much everything — the period clothing, the acting, the set design! Everyone is frankly, terrific, but Sidhant Gupta’s Jay was dazzling. Watching Jay’s transition from a jitterbugging free spirit to Partition refugee to budding studio head made for a thrilling and poignant ride.
What I didn’t love: One main character committing suicide I’ll buy. Two doing so seemed a little tropey. And then there is Niloufer (acted by Wamiqa Gabbi), a prostitute turned silver screen star, and Jay’s main love interest. This woman is pure poison, not because she’s mean but because she has zero to lose. No matter how many times she shamelessly toys with Jay and then leaves him for greener pastures, he always runs after her (typically in monsoon season sans umbrella) and apologizes. (Jay’s like the poster boy for Why Men Marry Bitches). Despite Niloufer’s tough start, I couldn’t find any real sympathy for her until the final episode.
Pull out the popcorn, or better yet the madrasi mix, and settle in to binge. Pro tip: turn off the dubbing and deal with the subtitles — it’s by far a better experience, and the acting is so good, and each episode so well crafted, you won’t miss a beat.
Shantaram (Apple TV) — Also set in India, Shantaram takes place in 1980s Bombay. (Scary to think of the eighties as “historical” but s’ truth). Based on the semi-autobiographical 2005 novel by Gregory David Roberts, paramedic-cum-bank robber, Dale/Lin (played soulfully by the talented Charlie Hunnam) escapes prison in Australia and flees to India to start a new life in Bombay. Granted, felon heroes are few, but after the first few minutes of the first episode, I was totally buying it. Hunnam’s Lin has layers, including an almost masochistic drive to make up for his past mistakes by saving as many lives as possible, no matter the cost to himself.
To that end, he sets up a medical clinic in one of the city’s poorest slums and, to obtain desperately needed medical supplies, becomes indebted to Bombay crime boss, Khader Khan (played with existential angst by the wonderful Alexander Siddig). It doesn’t help that Lin’s fallen for Khan’s chief fixer, the sexy, enigmatic, and often cruel, Karla. For Lin, good intentions land him in hot water with just about everyone, including an Aussie police detective who trails him with the vicious resolve of Javert in Les Mis.
Things I loved: A good deal of the action centers around Leopold Cafe, a real-life Bombay restaurant.3 In the series, Leopold’s is the preferred watering hole for a clutch of European expats and misfits, including an oddly likeable Frenchman who brokers deals between various baddies. Also, Lin’s friendship with Prabhu (played to perfection by Shubham Saraf), fuels each and every episode as we watch their relationship transform from transactional to brotherly. Prabhu first recruits Lin for his tour guiding business and then shelters him when he is tossed out of his seedy expat hotel. The wisecracking banter between the two is the aural equivalent of biting into a crisp apple. I also appreciated their shifting power dynamic. Lin may set out to be the savior, but Prabhu steps up to do the saving on more than one occasion.
What I didn’t love. I’m the first to say that every woman should have a little mystery, but too often Karla’s character conflates mystery with meanness. I get Lin’s initial attraction — French actress Antonia Desplat is a talented stunner — but after, I dunno, the third time she throws him under the bus, maybe he should wise up.
Alas, Shantaram was canceled after the first season. But what a season!
Pachinko (Apple TV+) — Based on the 2017 National Book Award finalist novel by Min Jin Lee, Pachinko the limited series tracks two principal timelines: 1930s Korea and 1980s Japan.
The series begins in 1910 with Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea; the country would remain part of the Empire of Japan until 1945.4 Teenaged Sunja, daughter of a crippled fisherman who with his wife keeps a lodging house, falls for a wealthy Japanese stranger (the adopted son of a Japanese crime family) whom she meets at a local fishmarket. When she becomes pregnant, she assumes he will marry her. Instead, he admits he is already married and offers her a life of luxury as his mistress. Devastated, she nonetheless refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts a mercy marriage with a kind, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. Her decision to leave Korea, and her powerful former lover, sets off a dramatic saga that impacts her family through the generations.
What I loved/didn’t love. Raj and I both felt the 1930s story line was strongest. When we veered into the 1980s, with Sunja’s grown son, then the wealthy owner of multiple pachenko (gambling) parlors, and grandson, Solomon (a banking exec), I felt myself impatient to get back to young Sunja, bravely keeping her family going by selling kimchi on the streets of a Korean slum in Japan. (This despite Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung as the older Sunja). Also, the modern side story of Solomon’s former love interest battling AIDS felt tacked on, in the series, at least. (Disclaimer: I haven’t yet read the book).
The Alienist, Season 1 (TNT) — Gilded Age NYC — my happy place! Granted, the 1994 novel by Caleb Carr is waaaaay better; still, Season 1 was a gripping, addictive watch I will not regret. The limited series stars Daniel Brühl as Dr. Laslo Kreizler, a pioneering alienist (psychiatrist) in the field of criminology, Dakota Fanning as Sara Howard, a secretary for the police department who aspires to be an investigator, and Luke Evans as John Moore, who thumbs his nose at his patrician family by working as a newspaper sketch artist. The unlikely trio comes together to solve the grizzly, serial murders of boy prostitutes, using psychology and the emerging science of forensics (fingerprinting was viewed as suspect) to bring the killer to justice.
Things I loved: The reconstructed streets of Gilded Age New York City are brought to vivid life. And Luke Evans’ dilettante sketch artist makes for delicious eye candy. If the show were set in contemporary times, we’d be tempted to tell him to check his privilege. But hey, its 1896, so go with it.
What I didn’t love: The liberties taken with the mores of the era often felt anachronistic. Take for example the final episode. After an evening out, John abruptly takes the carriage and leaves Sara stranded on the street after dark. I get that he’s trying to respect her um… agency. Still, history purist that I am, I must say that a gentleman (which John most assuredly is) in 1896 would never leave a lady, no matter how stubbornly independent she might be, on a darkened city street to fend for herself. I repeat, never.
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The moniker “Bollywood” didn’t come into use until the 1970s.
https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/hot-on-web/bombay-talkies-to-ashok-kumar-easter-eggs-in-vikramaditya-motwanes-new-show-amazon-jubilee#read-more
Opened in 1871, Mumbai’s Leopold Cafe was one of the sites targeted during the November 26, 2008 citywide terror attacks by an Islamist militant group operating out of Pakistan. The restaurant still bears bullet holes from the day. https://www.lifestyleasia.com/ind/dining/food/have-you-visited-the-oldest-restaurants-in-asia-mumbais-leopold-cafe-is-one-of-them/
Read more about Japan’s colonization of Korea here. https://www.history.com/news/japan-colonization-korea
I don't have a lot of streaming channels or premium cable, so I'm limited to PBS for quality historical series. I watched Sanditon.
We do have Disney+, and I know there are a few on Hulu I should check out.
I watched season 1 of Sanditon and recently had a friend catch me up on the season 2 -- Theo James!