‘Jubilee’ review: In brooding tale of the price of stardom, a few notes of celebration

Jubilee runs in the opposite direction from the prevailing magic-of-cinema orthodoxy. The engrossing Prime Video series, created by Soumik Sen and Vikramaditya Motwane, re-casts Hindi cinema’s so-called Golden Era in the amber glow of twilight. Set between 1947 and 1953, Jubilee heads out in search of disenchantment. In the interlinked trajectories of a studio boss and his movie star wife, an on-the-make actor, a striver and an aspiring filmmaker, the series finds it by the truckload.

Srikant Roy (Prosenjit Chatterjee) and Sumitra Kumari (Aditi Rao Hydari) run the Roy Talkies studio, which resembles the actual Bombay Talkies in its success, influence and aspirations. Roy’s hunt for a new face to headline his productions ends with Jamshed Khan (Nandish Singh Sandhu). Jamshed is to be renamed Madan Kumar to ensure saleability – Srikant values profit above everything else, even Sumitra.

There is another claimant to the ‘Madan Kumar’ screen name: Srikant’s employee Binod (Aparshakti Khurana). A lab technician whose professional duties include carrying out his boss’s dirty linen, Binod is a dogsbody desperate to become top dog. Binod stoops to conquer, altering the futures of Jamshed, Srikant and Sumitra in the process.

Two parallel tracks merge with Binod’s journey. The dancer Niloufer (Wamiqa Gabbi) finds her way from Lucknow to Mumbai....

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