The Royals: 2025 (Starring Ishaan Khatter & Bhumi Pednekar)
Star Cast: Ishaan Khatter (Maharaj Aviraaj Singh of Morpur, Fizzy), Bhumi Pednekar (Sophia Kanmani Shekhar, CEO of Royal B&B and Coach Potato), Vihaan Samat (Yuvraj Digvijay Singh of Morpur, Diggy), Kavya Trehan (Yuvarani Divyaranjani Singh of Morpur, Jinnie), Sakshi Tanwar (Maharani Padmaja Singh of Morpur, Paddy), Zeenaat Aman (Rajmata Bhagyashree Devi or Morpur), Udit Arora (Kunal, CFO of Royal B&B and Coach Potato and Sophia’s ex), Nora Fatehi (Ayesha Dondi, Fizzy’s ex), Alyy Khan (Nawab Dondi), Dino Morea (Nawab Salauddin Khan of Alsipur, Salad), Milind Soman (Former Maharaj Yuvanath Singh of Morpur), Chunky Pandey (Ranjit Shroff), Lisa Mishra (Niki Kaushik), Sumukshi Suresh (Keerthana), Luke Kenny (Maurice), Jagdish Rajpurohit (Girdhariji)
Director: Priyanka Ghose, Nupur Asthana
Producer: Pritish Nandy
Production Companies: Pritish Nandy Communications
Platform: Netflix
Written By : Neha Veena Sharma
Created By: Rangita Pritish Nandy, Ishita Pritish Nandy
Language: Hindi
Release Date: 9th May 2025
Rating: 3.5/5
On one hand we have Sophia Kanmani Shekhar (Bhumi Pednekar): new age , successful, women entrepreneur because everyone is screaming Women Empowerment and Feminism from rooftops. One of the forerunners and part of the burgeoning startup culture that has taken root in India post Covid and that is still steadily expanding.
And on the other, we have Maharaj Aviraaj Singh (Ishaan Kakker): Prince Charming and Knight without shining armour instead sporting a bare glistening chest riding a white horse, because apparently that never gets old. Running high on his equestrian pursuits.
Sophia and Aviraaj have their first meet cute on the beach at Bentota in Sri Lanka, where Sophia in her competitiveness outruns Aviraaj on his horse posing for a modeling assignment. After a sexually charged booty call gone wrong, the two part ways exchanging snubs.
Sophia stands amidst the success of her current start-up, Couch Potato, winning the award for Best Women Entrepreneur of the Year. Being a busybody and visionary itching to pick-up the next challenge, she proposes Royal B&B: Selling royal experiences by living with royalty themselves. Though successful, her board still cites doubts alluding to Sophia’s tendency to be impulsive and hence not stable. It’s this same impulsiveness, though, which also makes her spontaneously brilliant.
After the death of Maharaj Yuvanath Singh (special appearance by Milind Soman) of Morpur, the kids: Aviraaj, Digvijay and Divyaranjani are summoned to bear witness and be part of execution of his will. They discover that all they have left is a royal front with a crumbling Morpur direly in need of funds for repair and restoration. With whatever meagre funds left in the hands of hitherto unheard Maurice, even maintaining their royal lifestyle remains a challenge. Enter Royal B&B to the rescue !
Things are not smooth sailing for the team. Sophia and Aviraaj don’t see eye to eye on many things and with a background attraction acting between the two they act up even more. Sophia comes across as sexually frustrated and oscillates between her new found attraction towards Aviraaj and then her reliable and always there ex as well as business partner, Kunal. This confusion reflects in her work, as she makes rookie mistakes that no experienced entrepreneur should make: Misplaced publicity at Royal B&B’s pilot promotional event: Polo with The Prince, the lack of test cases, no prior inspection of Morpur before taking on the project in terms of budgeting or setting time lines etc. This against the challenging terms that she accepts from the investors.
Sophia’s display of aggressive, no nonsense and upfront attitude in the beginning/pilot episode petters down in the subsequent ones, where she seems like a desperate business woman trailing after Aviraaj literally begging/requesting him to get to events, coaxing him to participate like a babysitter rather than the one who signs the cheques or who calls the shots.
In Royal B&B’s next event : A Royal Ball with The Commoners, Hazards of mixing business with pleasure come to light. There are Blurring lines on Sophia’s true motivations: Royal B&B or the prince? A distracted and self-indulgent Sophia raises further questions regarding her eligibility in Zubin’s mind(heading the board) and further cements the growing disquiet in Kunal’s heart regarding his standing in both the company as well as Sophia’s life.
The Morpur royalty is quite flashy with tendencies to throw tantrums and competitions on who is more sulky. Zeenat Aman, though, limited in her scope dresses flamboyantly while open mindedly egging on her sombre daughter-in-law who has led a rather subdued life to live a little. They all have pet names like Fizzy, Diggy, Jinnie and Paddy which make them more relatable as a family. The younger prince Digvijay, with his heart and mind in the right place, more grounded, in tune with Morpur’s finances and administration seems the more ideal choice for Kingship. He is also the one to connect with Kunal to bring Royal B&B on board. Yet for reasons unknown, he is overlooked for the elder, New York thriving, situationship-indulging, crowd-pulling, charismatic Aviraaj. However, rather than sulk over his stolen thunder, Diggy earns his own spotlight through his gastronomical talents. Jinnie, the youngest and only girl hooks up with Sophia’s teammate, Niki, after a spate of unsuccessful boyfriends.
We have love triangles to make things more interesting; Aviraaj-Sophia-Kunal, then Aviraaj-Ayesha-Sophia and even Aviraaj-Sophia-Salad (Salauddin), though Sophia gives a very bland response to Salad’s overtures.. Though the most scintillating one is Rani-sa’s escapades with Dondi-Paddy- Ranjit (smiley). Sakshi Tanwar plays the queen with poise, quiet reserve and elegance.
Beyond all the glam, smooth talks and suave walks, Aviraaj is a mess, carrying unresolved issues regarding his father, which are going to remain unresolved now that he is dead. Sophia carries her own ghosts, trauma of her parent’s deaths in an accident when she was a child.
While Aviraaj battles his sentimental vulnerabilities that surfaces along with mood swings, Sophia battles to remain the queen of her company amidst a unanimous no-vote of confidence from her board and desertion of her partner Kunal. Aviraaj fears the responsibilities that he would be expected to shoulder, the sacrifices that he would have to make with donning the crown, Though what these so-called heartbreaking sacrifices are that need to be made for the Praja, I could not figure. In this sense, Aviraaj seems hardly challenged.
Khatter has never appeared more fit and chiseled and with his new body brings in a more matured acting than his previous roles. And the director uses it to the max by getting him to pull a Salman Khan in almost every episode. It’s not just Khatter but also Pednekar who flaunts a leaner body with abs and a severely compressed bust size. Pednekar sports a bronzed look with several body hugging numbers in whites, blacks and golden.
We have some daring scenes featuring kisses and sexcapades. Worthy mention is the kiss between the girls, it was striking in the contrast between their skin tones besides the taboo of a makeout scene between same sex relations that the audience is still easing into. The Royal’s also belts out some nice pop rap music with ‘Who Rules The World’ crooned by Anish Mathews, Harsh Upadhyay and Sukriti Bhardwaj and other background beats. Khatter, Nora Fatehi and Pednekar dance to some well executed choreography in Adayein Teri and Dil Deewana.
Aviraaj and Sophia face misunderstandings, ex’s ,tight schedules, judgements from royalty and the public, law suits, insecurities and unresolved past issues to finally get together in a cutsey way.
Distracted earlier, Sophia makes a come back being more assertive and authoritative, stressing on the need for rules and decorum instead of being constantly distracted as she leads Morpur’s event finale, A Fundraiser.
While it’s The Prince in the end who does the chasing, it’s The Girl who saves The Day!
