FILM REVIEW: Sharmajee Ki Beti

Numerous movies about subjects like feminism, women's issues, and women's privacy have been released recently. With Sharmaji Ki Beti, writer-director Tahira Kashyap has continued this trend. Tahira, who has written and directed numerous short films, excels at discussing the problems of women from three distinct social strata without elevating them, and what's particularly fascinating is that their last names are the same. This movie, which will be available on Prime Video, is about issues that affect women.

Two teenage students named Swati (Vanshika Taparia) and Gurveen (Arista Mehta) are introduced in the plot. These two girls are dealing with the demands of adolescence. Gurveen believes that Swati is more interested in girls than boys, while Swati worries because she hasn't gotten her period yet. Additionally, Swati is upset with her mother Jyoti (Sakshi Tanwar), a coaching school teacher, saying that because of her work, her mother is unable to give her enough attention.

Even though Jyoti's spouse Sudhir (Sharib Hashmi) gives her all in support of her career, Jyoti is observed finding it difficult to manage the two. Conversely, Kiran, Gurveen's mother (Divya Dutta), is experiencing loneliness in Mumbai as a result of coming from a tiny town like Patiala. She and Parveen Dabas are married, but they are not happy together. However, Tanvi Sharma (Saiyaami Kher), a state-level cricket player, moved to Mumbai from Vadodara to pursue his career in the sport. Although she is passionate about her game in a different way, her partner Rohan (Ravjeet Singh), who is battling to become an actor, continuously criticizes her and her game.

He desires for Tanvi to wed him and give up playing cricket. Every one of these women and girls battles on her own terms. Movies about women usually focus on finding a voice, overcoming obstacles, or adjusting to life in a man's environment. However, Tahira Kashyap Khurrana's Sharmajee Ki Beti's subtle feminism is deeply rooted in her authentic self. The five female protagonists' daily struggles and experiences are driven by their assertion of self-worth rather than conflict.

As a comical allegory for the changing times, Sharmajee Ki Beti begins with a woman's voice mimicking the first lines of the Mahabharata speech, Main Samay Hoon, with which Doordarshan audiences must be all too acquainted. However, the issues that the majority of the story's characters are still facing are not new. The group of Sharma ladies with a shared surname but different challenges is made up of three young women: Sakhi Tanwar, Divya Dutta, Saiyami Kher, and Vanshika Taparia, who are adolescent best friends, and Arista Mehta, who is a housewife. The anecdotes of growing pangs and adulting problems across the strains of surviving either phase are colored by warmth and wit. Thirteen-year-old Swati (Taparia) is a messy girl who feels ashamed of her sexually active seniors and beats herself up for not getting her period yet.

When Gurveen (Mehta) isn't fixated on her small mop of hair, she's learning new things about her sexuality. Tanwar, Swati's middle-class, managerial whiz mother, works as a coach at a coaching center and has made everything on her to-do list, including "me time" with her patient husband (Sharib Hashmi). Gurveen's Patiala-transferred mother (Dutta) is a quintessential example of the blues from being a housewife, disregarded by her indifferent husband (Parvin Dabas). Tahira fits in Tanvi's (Kher) tomboyish cricketer persona in between these stereotypically domestic scenes, going above and above to feed her chauvinistic boyfriend's (Ravjeet Singh) macho ego. and intricacy. The narrative, which handles insolence and infidelity equally, has an almost disorganized feel. Although it's always good to want to normalize homosexuality and menstruation, Sharmajee Ki Beti's sentimental strategy falls flat.

While the males are either really supportive or really schmucks, it seems like they are all angels who are open to any change or sin. choosing to view the world through rose-colored glasses is understandable, but Sharmajee Ki Beti's intention to subtly undermine patriarchy is less significant given how predictably these people behave. The play's optimistic ensemble of young and mature women who fit into their parts with elegance and occasionally disobedience is what makes it so effective. In contrast to this subtle but heartfelt film, they always appear to know what they want.