Sharmajee Ki Beti Review - Tahira Kashyap's ode to womanhood is earnest but...
Sharmajee Ki Beti is why women should tell more women stories but also how not to merge them in the most inorganic way.
3.0/5
Jun 27, 2024
Sharmajee Ki Beti Movie Review
Sharmaji Ki Beti
Sharmajee Ki Beti Review: Plot - Three women Sakshi Tanwar (Jyoti), Divya Dutta (Kiran), Saiyami Kher (Tanvi) and two girls Vanshika Taparia (Swati) and Arista Mehta (Gurveen) are navigating through life. Jyoti is making ends meet in a costly city, Kiran is a victim of her loneliness, Tanvi wants to bring a cricketer, Swati wants her periods, and Gurveen is busy figuring out her sexuality. What binds them together is the common surname ‘Sharma’ and these Sharmajee Ki Betis have to now sort their lives out in a way that they bring order to it while feeling the taste of freedom, liberation, and respect.
Sharmajee Ki Beti Review: Analysis
When a woman tells the story of women, there is a certain charm to it. Not like men should not, because some do bring the tender joy of being the opposite gender well too. But when a woman is telling the story of her sisterhood there is a sense of being heard, the sense of ‘look you are not alone in this’, and a sense of we can move mountains if we want too. The ally is more motivating than any man can be mostly and that makes these films special. This is a replication of life lived and battled rather than researched and imagined. But having said that, is the charm and relatability the only requirement to make the movie? Well, not. Then how does one define whether it is a full-course meal or not? Let's dissect.
Sharmajee Ki Beti written and directed by Tahira Kashyap sets out in a very good direction. It is not trying to be revolutionary, there is no woman who is screaming at the top of her voice, and neither are there monologues about how patriarchy has pressed the feminine gender down by calling it weak. Rather it is a simple tale of women from different walks of life finding their redemption and seeking validation in their way and capacity. If you have seen Pinni, you know she is more of a silent rebel who is more interested in the action and little in reaction. She brings the same troupe to her feature directorial debut which has three stellar actors at the helm of it.
There is confidence in each corner of this film and stories that talk of modern, patriarchal, and progressive families set in a city that all of them call it their home. A mother has taken up the job to be a teacher to give a better life and school to her daughter (Sakshi). The daughter is in the jiffy to grow up and wants to get her periods ASAP (Vanshika). A wife who has migrated to the big city from a small town to mend the gap between her and her husband only to realize it is beyond healing now. But something has to fill that gap, so she finds art (Divya). Her daughter is battling her inner demons over her sexuality (Arista). A woman is done with her actor boyfriend telling her to behave girly and give up cricket, her only dream she has worked too hard towards. All of them are in a pressure cooker, and the only wait is for the pressure to be released through a whistle.
Tahira takes all these stories and explores various themes. There is acknowledgment of the constant struggle a woman goes through, the guilt of not being there for her loved ones, while the loved ones have moved on. The guilt of thinking for herself before others and more. But what is beautiful is the fact that she doesn't look at men as a problem or enemy. They are allies in her world who share duties. The man children exist too but they can be repaired even if some need the hard way. Her decisions are well-calculated, the outbursts are real. What is real for the dramatic world is imagination for the common and she explores it so well.
But what she fails to explore well is the depth of this story. 5 ladies and a runtime that is not even 2 hours give her room to touch and wrap the topics up. We never get the space to enter their lives more than what is on screen and that does stop us from looking at these characters as a reflection of the real world. Add to it, these women meet each other at some point, but Kashyap never forms a bond between them when there is enough room. Sisterhood is all we need, and it is endearing. These women have all the reasons to form a clique and they don't. This somewhere feels incomplete, leaving the entire product looking incomplete. While everything is subtle, an infidel husband cannot be forgiven so easily in the real world. This makes the angle look too vanilla. Even when she lets him go she tells him to return if he feels lonely, but how is that helping her?
Having said that, Tahira also makes some very bizarre choices when she has two early teenage girls discuss how her father's salary is enough to run her life and house, or how she is telling her mother that she has been incompetent. Words like farz, Kabil, and laayak are not an eighth-standard English learning teenage girls’ everyday vocabulary. Also, another girl battling her sexuality in the eighth grade is believable, but her being so clear about it with no assistance or conversation is too tall an order.
Sharmajee Ki Beti Review - Final Verdict
Tahira Kashyap has an earnest tale to tell that is looking at the realness of being a woman in a maximum city. But there are also some random decisions and a lack of depth that takes away the magic. We have a glass-half-full situation here.
Sharmajee Ki Beti is streaming on Amazon Prime VIdeo from June 28, 2024. Stay tuned to OTTplay for more information on this and everything else from the world of streaming and films.
ALSO READ: Tahira Kashyap announces feature directorial debut Sharmaji Ki Beti
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