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Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy

Losing It

Vir Das

Netflix · 2018 · 67 min

An Indian comic talks religion, childhood, and career missteps in California.

Vir Das spent years establishing himself as a massive star in India before trying to conquer the global comedy market. For his second Netflix outing, he shifts away from the split-continent, stadium-sized grandiosity of his debut and pulls his focus into a smaller, more direct stage show. He spends a significant chunk of the performance physically acting out scenes from the Ramayana, miming the epic’s heroes to avoid being accused of heresy, and pitching ‘Chris-Lam,’ a combined religion designed to bring about world peace.

Filmed at the Regency Theatre in San Francisco, the 2018 special catches Das at a transitional moment in his career, just as he was securing roles on American television while maintaining his status in Bollywood. He uses the set to look back at his own missteps, including starring in a poorly received Indian sex comedy and dealing with a severe bout of appendicitis under the care of two Sikh surgeons. The hour also traces his childhood in Nigeria and his early days as an immigrant in the United States, culminating in a reflective story about working as a Chicago dishwasher and receiving a life-altering $350 tip.

Reviews for the special were generally warm, though some critics felt his more philosophical rants occasionally leaned toward the preachy tone of a TED Talk. While some international critics felt the transitions occasionally stumbled, the set succeeded as an intimate look at a comedian trying to define his identity for a global audience.

The set list

5 bits

  1. Teasing Californian Indians

    Ribbing Indian immigrants living in Silicon Valley strongholds like Cupertino, Gilroy, and Milpitas who never return home.

  2. Organized religion and the Ramayana

    Arguing that organized religion is like asking someone else to take your selfie, while extracting the Ramayana as an entertaining story and miming jokes to avoid blasphemy.

  3. Childhood downgrade from Nigeria to Delhi

    Recounting his family becoming overnight poor in Nigeria and moving to a flat in Noida, shifting from a top boarding school in Sanawar to Delhi Public School.

  4. The career fallout of Mastizaade

    Discussing the aftermath of his critically panned Bollywood sex-comedy, joking that his phone went silent for six months to the point that even Vodafone stopped calling.

  5. Tipping a waitress $350 and the beef epiphany

    Reflecting on working as a dishwasher in Chicago and later leaving a $350 tip to pay it forward while having a mid-life epiphany over a filet mignon steak.

How it plays

Tone
Introspective, witty, irreverent, and gentle.
On stage
Cosmopolitan, reflective, and self-deprecating, performing in a Dhruv Vaish kurta under a Troy Costa suit jacket.
Pace
Calmer and conversational, letting introspective moments linger without immediately resolving into quick punchlines.
About
travel, religion, childhood, patriotism, masculinity, failure

What the critics said

Received polarized to mixed responses: Scroll.in praised its cosmopolitan appeal, relatable childhood memories, and accessible balance of cultural observation, whereas Film Companion found it laborious and lacking self-awareness, and Paste Magazine noted that its philosophical concepts outshone their comedic execution.

In the room: An intimate San Francisco room of mixed Indian-American and general audiences that reacted warmly to diaspora references but occasionally delivered tepid laughs.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: netflix.com, latestnetflix.com, themoviedb.org, wikidata.org, scroll.in, thecomicscomic.com, filmcompanion.in, rottentomatoes.com, en.m.wikipedia.org, gqindia.com.

Backstory

Reflecting on turning a corner after a significant career downturn following the failure of his 2016 Bollywood film Mastizaade, as well as examining his upbringing across Nigeria and India.

Details

Released
Taped
The Regency Ballroom, San Francisco
Runtime
67 min
Where
Netflix
Director
Marcus Raboy
Topics
Before
Abroad Understanding (2017)
After
For India (2020)

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