The Tribe is vacuous anything-but-unscripted fare

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This is the first major disappointment from Dharmatic Entertainment. At base level, it is supposed to be an “unscripted reality show”, and when you watch all the nine episodes, you realize that it is a ta-a-a-a-a-l-l-l story indeed!

For one, are we to believe that the five girls over here (and their mentor-host as well) knew exactly when the camera was on to talk in sequential fashion about what was happening? And to be fully made-up and ready whenever the shoot was on? So how come they never were in casual homely attire and hair any time?

What’s more, the lavish outfits changed (and were never repeated!!) with each shot all through! And the visits by a couple of parents to USA seemed so fake! The phone calls with them seemed even “fake-r!” to coin a word. And how come the actors, individually, speak at length about what has happened and what is to come seated in the same outfit???

Also, the drama that emerges, especially the episode focused only on Alfia, seems coordinated, planned and executed to the last shot, and the idea is to show the upcoming Indian ‘global’ influencers and the American and global social media dream. Check the press release: the series “goes behind the scenes into the glamorous lives of five affluent Indian content creators who leave behind their families and step out of their comfort zones to relocate to Los Angeles to build their social media careers.”

What’s more, we have a filmi tradition going on here: Allana Panday, the married one now expecting a baby as the series ends, is Ananya Panday’s first cousin; Alfia is writer-director Rumi Jafry’s kid; Alaviaa is Jaaved Jaffery’s darling daughter and Srushti Porey is daughter to advocate and National award-winning filmmaker Samruoddhi Porey. The only non-film exception is Aryaana Gandhi, a budding singer-songwriter, while Hardik is a 29 year-old marketing whizkid.

Naturally that means that cameos come in from the film denizens who are close family and we also glimpse at Allana Pandey’s wedding to American Ivor Mccray. Then there are multiple names, some of them well-known, who are all playing themselves, Shah Rukh Khan downwards!

The girls’ lives seem completely vacuous and the conversations again are replete with social media jabber that truly can disorient all the Indian youth who are struggling to do well in diverse fields by working off their behinds.

As a show, I just kept on watching to see if any substance (in content or message)  emerges at all out of The Tripe… oops! I mean The Tribe, but it is just an orgy of Guido Verweyen’s spellbinding camerawork, uber-stunning locales, impassive talks, empty-headed belles in abbreviated costumes (a whopper amount has been spent on their glam…Er, Um, Ah!… wardrobe, for sure) and their supposed dedication towards making quick moolah, getting followers and thus pleasing investor Hardik of CollabTribe for taking them to Los Angeles!

But all I got was an excess of glamour—and zero content. In an elongated skin-show orgy.

Rating: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! (That’s one ‘Ha!’ per protagonist!) But seriously?

Amazon Prime Video presents Dharmatic Entertainment’s The Tribe  Executoive Producers: Karan Johar, Apoorva Mehta & Aneesha Baig  Directed by: Omkar Potdar  Written by: Aneesha Baig  Starring: Allana Panday, Alfia Jafry, Alaviaa Jafferi, Shrusti Porey, Aryaana Gandhi, Hardik Zaveri, Ivor Mccray & others