Class review: Netflix India’s scandalously entertaining remake of Élite is top-tier guilty pleasure

Class review: Poverty chic and a bangin’ soundtrack come together in Netflix’s Class, the streamer’s Indian remake of the hit Spanish-language series Élite. But this is probably not the description that anybody involved in the show would have preferred, because once it sheds its lurid outer layer — with almost the same eagerness as its characters shedding their clothes — Class reveals itself to be a more sensitive experience, in spite of itself.

It’s as if showrunner Ashim Ahluwalia can’t resist dialing up the depravity at regular intervals — either via disgusting displays of wealth, or the objectionable teenage behaviour that could momentarily make you demand a revocation of their voting rights. The crudeness is intense and insistent, often bordering on self-parody.

Set in the fictional Hampton International School in New Delhi, Class explores themes like the wealth-gap, gender, sexuality, and caste — an ambitious selection of causes for a show that occasionally seems like it involves Orry as a creative consultant. But the series always stops short of winking at the audience. This isn’t to say that it doesn’t take its themes seriously enough, but it certainly filters them through a garish, pulp fiction-inspired plot, which in some ways is equally negligent.

Class review:

Our surrogates in the show are three students — Dheeraj, Saba, and Balli — who are transferred to the exclusive Hampton when their own school burns down in a suspicious accident. For Hampton’s trustees, this is a great PR opportunity to show how they’re giving back to society, and coming to the aid of the less-privileged. But Dheeraj, Saba and Balli know that there’s something fishy going on the moment they set foot in their new school.

For one, it seems to be entirely populated by the worst of the worst — girls who’re one poorly-received Reel away from slitting someone’s throat, to a gang of dudes who strut around with major ‘tu jaanta hai mera baap kaun hai’ energy. These guys have names like Sharan, Veer, and Aryan — they’re the rich kids of industrialists, shady businessmen, and socialites. Veer, as it turns out, is the son of the builder whose negligence may or may not have caused the fire at Dheeraj, Saba and Balli’s old school.

Unlike Mumbai, where it is impossible to ignore poverty, it is entirely conceivable for the richest folks in Delhi to continue to live in their ivory towers, without ever really encountering those outside of their socio-economic class.

Which is probably why the rich kids at Hampton mock the three newcomers so mercilessly when they first arrive. While Dheeraj and Saba are initially rattled by the bullying, the opportunistic Balli recognises the potential to take advantage of this situation. All three characters are played by genuinely gifted young performers — Piyush Khati, Madhyama Segal, and Cwaayal Singh — who make even the most outlandish scenarios believable. This goes a long way in a show like Class, whose unmoored lunacy is in near-constant need of emotional anchors. Also outstanding are Anjali Sivaraman, who plays the troubled Suhani with such vulnerability, and Zeyn Shaw, who brings an emotional complexity to his performance as her brother, Veer.

Matters become more complicated when Suhani dies — apparently murdered — at the end of episode one. Like Big Little Lies, Class moves back and forth in time, routinely cutting to flash-forwards of the students and teachers of Hampton being interrogated by a couple of cops who look like they drive around in the same PCR as Hathiram Choudhary. But the murder plot is yet another lurid outer layer that has to be swiftly discarded in order to fully appreciate the show’s core.

The glossy version of Delhi conceptualised by Ahluwalia and his writers room, which stunningly includes the guys behind Being Cyrus and Aamis but not a single woman, is quasi-fantastical. Some scenes, especially the ones involving a queer character named Faruq, look like they’ve been shot specifically for a Nicobar ad. It’s like he floats on screen, invariably scored to a dreamy, trip-hop original song by Aditya N and Nayantara Bhatkal, which offers a nice sonic contrast to Prabh Deep’s venomous bars in an earlier scene set in the slums.

It is unclear if we’re meant to accept this version of the Capital as the truth. For instance, Faruq, who lives like a vagabond, goes on a date to Cafe Dori in one scene. Ridiculous as it often is, Class plays its drama dead straight. And this might be an issue. A little self-awareness goes a long way. More so when you’re being invited into such a heightened reality. But Ahluwalia and his fellow directors — the credits are a little vague — are able to maintain a surprising level of tonal consistency, which is made all the more impressive when you consider just how easy it always is for something like Class to fail. This show is the cinematic equivalent of cheat meal; immensely satisfying, but only if you’re spending the rest of your week on a strict diet of Soviet era socialist dramas.