- Date of Release: 12 September 2025
- Genre: Comedy, Drama
- Language: Hindi
- Watch On: Amazon Prime Video
Do You Wanna Partner (Season 1)
Introduction
I feel film criticism is like tasting a freshly brewed craft beer, understanding the nuances of its fruity taste, ensuring that none of its flavours are overpowering, accounting for the right kind of a fizz that the beer has to offer, and yet not fearing a foul tasteless product to try at the end of the day. Unfortunately, most film critics undergo the same fate as that of the brewmaster named Bobby (Nakuul Mehta) in the new Hindi show Do You Wanna Partner – wherein you see him conceiving a recipe of the craft beer before throwing up everytime in the scene. In that regard, the show itself isn’t bad at a concept level wherein you have two young female entrepreneurs – a marketing whizz Shikha (Tamannaah Bhatia) teaming up with a financial analyst Anahita (Diana Penty) to create a business of a craft beer. I am all for this setup given that I am fairly familiar with the ‘vibes shibes’ of a startup which is always met with obstacles at regular instances. The issue remains the fluff in the drama that positions these characters as the ones from privilege (again nothing wrong but hear me out) – that invariably takes away the groundedness of the narrative that you would otherwise witness in a show like Pitchers (2015).
Story & Screenplay
It is interesting how the line ‘Tu Beer Hai B***c***’ from Pitchers has a natural progression in the show Do You Wanna Partner – I heard you sing that song featuring Govinda and Salman Khan – written by Nandini Gupta, Aarsh Vora, Mithun Gangopadhyay, Nidhi Sethia and Hussain Dalal. But unlike the former which wished to tell a humane story around the life of a startup, ably focusing on the characters, their struggles and their bid to setup and eventually run their business efficiently, there is a huge compromise in the latter given the fluff that is engrained in the narrative. It is a very specific issue that Do You Wanna Partner suffers from – the state of the characters coming from a place of privilege automatically nullifies the impact of the issues, with the fluff never allowing you to take them seriously.
As a result, the format of the show is reduced to a checklist – Shikha is fired from her job……the idea of her dad’s unfinished dream of a curated beer brand occurs to her…..she brings Anahita on board who in turn suffers from casual sexism at her work place……there is a villainy figure called Walia (Neeraj Kabi) who has ‘stolen’ the trademark from Shikha’s father…..a loan shark named Laila (Shweta Tripathi)….a theatre practitioner called Dylan (Jaaved Jaaferi) who becomes the face of their brand…..a green-flag chef interested in Shikha…..a brewmaster with anger management issues….some fights….some patch-ups and a fetish for the second season. It is a restored template that is borrowed from umpteen shows and films like Rocket Singh (2009) or even Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) – a film whose ghost is repeatedly troubling the production house now (this show is set in Gurgaon/Delhi and Kolkata too).
I am all for good reasoning, and the idea of women making it big in a men’s world is a winner of a concept on paper, something that does also show fizz momentarily in the show. In a scene you see Anahita waking up and receiving a call with a sore throat after a night filled with party and beer, only for the caller to presume her to be a ‘man’, thereby kickstarting the conversation on renting his brewery. It is interesting how the brewery owner is Neeraj Sood, the same actor who helped Ranbir Kapoor in Rocket Singh, but then I digress. The concept starts off on a realistic note here but soon veers into an unrealistic territory that brings in the Bengali actor Dylan into the fray, posing him as ‘David Jones’ – the face of their brand Jugaaro (which previously undergoes a change too – again a real-life problem embraced in a frivolous touch filled with fluff).
Even the personal lives of Shikha and Anahita feel even more frivolous with their love lives in picture. The idea of Anahita being attracted towards her brewmaster Bobby is superficial given the stereotypical traits of Bobby – he is hot-headed, foul-mouthed but with a heart of gold. He is typically a 90s-coded protagonist that the girls would swoon on, without considering the background (and Bollywood has overstayed this plotpoint for me to raise a red flag and say – NO…this is unrealistic). I mean in an extreme instance, you won’t have a female doctor falling for a roadside Tapori right? Or was I hallucinating this during the Hindi film Toofaan (2021).
On the other hand, Shikha’s love life is a little more grounded with her tryst with Kabir (Rannvijay Singha) – a chef by profession and a walking green-flag of sorts. At a point, you see that it is hard to balance her boss-women vibes, while also having trust issues with Kabir who is too-much of a green flag. But again the love story veers into an unchartered and unrealistic territory with the way it ended. It was kind of convenient without any layers to it.
The unrealistic territory here is nothing but fluff even as you see the Jugaaro startup raise 5 crores (2.5 crores in two installments), something that would have made Naveen Kasturia from Pitchers jealous. And this is also when the fluff takes over the narrative – right from Jugaaro’s tryst with social gatherings or music concerts, so much so that the hardship behind the scenes is hardly threatening while feeling on the surface. So I didn’t feel the pain and the frustration of Anahita and Shikha while having a disagreement on the investors onboard, or even the threat that Walia had to offer at some point. This was also true during the tiff that the duo shared, almost reconciling in a matter of scenes.
There is a character of the mother who appears at convenient places to impart life-lessons, even as the emotional core of the drama with respect to Shikha’s father’s dream of opening a beer brewary is reduced in the background. In fact, if the only emotional core component is emitted through the character of Dylan – a father-figure of sorts struggling financially, suffering from a memory loss but also helping out the protagonist-duo with their troubles, then it is an even bigger problem (given how the show isn’t about his journey). And the fetish for the second show doesn’t end – soon following a setup after a typical early 2000s-coded finale of outwitting the antagonist. As Shikha says – ‘Here We Go Again’, and I cannot agree more! Phew!
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues actually allow the humour to land while being self-aware of what they wish to serve. For instance in a scene, you see the character Of Jaaved Jaaferi saying on how he couldn’t be an actor in Bollywood, to which another character replies – ‘Nepotism’. The music by Sangeeth and Siddharth is peppy and vibrant, something that goes perfectly with the themes of the show. This also extends to the BGM that allows the drama to boast of a breezy outlook. The cinematography comprises of frames with bold colours that aesthetically pop-up onscreen, thereby giving the show a young vibe. And collectively, this is the fluff that I have bern emphasizing on, something that is great to look at but it also overpowers the writing in many ways.
The editing is choppy, an instance that you can see in the poorly edited sequence right at the start of the show. This pattern is frequent and also does its bit in distancing you from the characters. Directors Archit Kumar and Collin D’Cunha focus on fluff but overlook the real-life problems of the protagonists, in a way that makes you emotionally disconnected to them. I can’t quite tell whether or whether not that was the intention always, but largely, the setup felt superficial and far away from the issues that start-up face. Even if I were to give a little benefit of doubt, I couldn’t deny the superficial conflicts of the show, and how convenient the solutions here. This is majorly true in the backend of the show, making my belief stronger that the directors have missed their mark here.
Performances
The performances are decent by the members of the cast. Vidya Malavade, Abbas Syed, Sarabjeet Singh, Sarah Anjuli, Lokesh Mittal, Neeraj Sood and Hussain Dalal nicely contribute to the vibe of the show despite a limited screentime. Indraneil Sengupta as Sunjoy and Ayesha Raza Mishra as Radha are sincere and earnest here. Sufi Motiwala as Firdaus literally plays himself on the show, and well, that isn’t such a bad thing afterall. Rannvijay Singha as Kabir, the walking green flag in Shikha’s life is understated and delivers an endearing act. Shweta Tiwari as Laila is wonderful to witness in a character presumably with grey shades but with a heart of gold. Nakuul Mehta as Bobby is quite Vikrant Massey coded with his approach, that doesn’t always make him standout in the crowd. So while he is good, his identity feels like a derivative in many ways. Neeraj Kabi as Walia (lol, based on a real life fugitive whose surname is a derivative of the name here, you think we wouldn’t guess?) hams and hams and hams, making me wonder as to why a great actor like him was reduced to a caricature.
Jaaved Jaaferi as Dylan is the best actor on display despite some over the top tropes with respect to his character. It is endearing to witness that much of the emotional core of the drama erupts from his character, wherein he delivers quite a heartfelt performance with subtle bouts of comedy. Diana Penty as Anahita is pretty good in a role that seems like her comfort zone, and her vibrancy adds to the ‘spirit’ of the drama. Tamannaah Bhatia as Shikha is largely good but also momentarily disconnected in a few places. While she exudes of a bosslady vibe, there are instances also wherein the vibe felt put on, something that then compromised the emotional core of her character. And given that most of the drama unfolds through her gaze, this wasn’t ideal. In other words, she was good but far from great.
Conclusion
The first season of Do You Wanna Partner is a tasteless brew with hungover tropes and negligible fizz packaged in a startup drama for dummies that fails to impress. If Dushyant from Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai was a brewmaster, he would say David (and) Jones Ki company ka beer mat khareedna, haa unka fluff chahiye ho toh woh achcha hai (do not buy the beer of David Jones, but you could opt for their fluff instead). Available on Amazon Prime.