Sharmajee Ki Beti Review: Flattening Women’s Empowerment Into Clichés

Director: Tahira Kashyap Khurrana
Writer: Tahira Kashyap Khurrana
Cast: Sakshi Tanwar, Divya Dutta, Saiyami Kher, Vanshika Taparia, Arista Mehta, Sharib Hashmi, Parvin Dabbas

Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video

The smartest thing about Sharmajee Ki Beti, Tahira Kashyap Khurrana’s directorial debut, is its title. The term is a riff on the colloquial Indianism “Sharmaji Ka Beta,” the perfect hypothetical boy often used as a frame of reference by middle-class parents to inspire their own sons. The implication is that this imaginary neighbour’s son is the ultimate benchmark in studies, work and life. He can do no wrong – he is the ideal child. 

The gender reversal of this term  features five different vignettes – and Sharma(s) – of womanhood. There’s Swati Sharma (Vanshika Taparia), a 13-year-old schoolgirl desperate to get her first period. There’s her best friend, Gurveen Sharma (Arista Mehta), who’s confused about her sexual orientation. There’s Swati’s mother, Jyoti Sharma (Sakshi Tanwar), a sincere tuition teacher trying to juggle work and parenthood. There’s Gurveen’s mother, Kiran Sharma (Divya Dutta), a wealthy Patiala-born homemaker struggling to adapt to Mumbai. And there’s Tanvi Sharma (Saiyami Kher), a Ranji cricketer with a pretty boyfriend who thinks she isn’t girly enough. In society’s eyes, they must conform to patriarchal notions of their gender: Straight, submissive, feminine, domestic. The implication of their journey is that these non-imaginary daughters and wives and girlfriends are the benchmark in courage and complexity. They can do wrong – and defy the very concept of idealism. 

First-Feature Syndrome

But that’s where the cleverness ends. It’s a recurring problem with movies like Sharmajee Ki Beti and shows like Big Girls Don’t Cry. A decade ago, their novelty alone might have been enough. But they’re so satisfied with the progressive nature of their themes that the exploration of these themes become incidental. As a result, the void between intent and execution speaks to the chasm between storytelling and marketing. Women’s empowerment and feminism acquire the depth of a hashtag – like neatly-wrapped brands rather than adept social commentary. Everyone exists in binaries. The ‘housewife’ is a simpleton; the cricketer loves rides bikes, uses “yaar” a lot and arm-wrestles at pubs; the teenagers speak like precocious kids written by adults; the teacher’s compartmentalization is literal, where ‘Me time with husband’ is an alarm in her digital calendar. 

Sharmajee Ki Beti suffers from the first-feature syndrome. There’s an overdose of metaphorical mirror shots. The film opens with a cheeky voice-over that subverts the male baritone, but it disappears after the character introductions. The exposition lacks nuance: Two selectors watching Tanvi bat are heard discussing her potential in explicit context, “The opener slot is empty for the upcoming New Zealand tour”. They stop short of issuing a press release to the audience during this scene. Kiran’s boredom is random: She plays cards with dabbawalas on the streets, takes selfies with vegetable vendors, and has a househelp who teases her as if he’s watched too many Kapil Sharma Show reruns. The juggling of five parallel stories means that sequences are expanded rather than compressed or divided. Disparate scenes and emotions are often merged because it’s the same person: At one point, Swati goes from being funny backstage, then clinching an acting prize while a winning anthem plays, then waits sadly for her parents while the school empties out. Those are three genres fused together to save time – whereas they would normally be split into three scenes. The struggle is evident in how Jyoti’s resolution occurs so early that you almost forget she’s around by the time everyone else earns their happily ever afters.

Replacing Complexity With Stereotypes

In its pursuit of cultural frankness, the film also reduces its supporting characters to stereotypes. For instance, the idea is that Kiran’s husband is too busy to care, but his curtness is repetitive. He’s shown reading newspapers at breakfast, acting super-busy, dismissing all her suggestions like a Disney villain. Similarly, Tanvi’s boyfriend is an aspiring actor (he even apes Farhan Akhtar in Luck By Chance when he announces his breakthrough), but his chauvinism is blatant. He says things like “marriage, kids, that’s natural progression for a woman, yaar” while admonishing her for cricket bruises and chipped nails. That one Chak De! India scene, where Preety Sabharwal dumps her main-character-energy man, conveys more than Tanvi’s entire story. When she finally stands up for herself, it’s on her turf, but even something as inconspicuous as his reaction to her monologue could’ve been better – he exits the frame like a robot as she walks away triumphantly. Even the beta-male goodness of Jyoti’s husband, Sudhir (Sharib Hashmi), feels superficial. 

The performances are flattened by the film’s tone. It’s a good cast across generations, but one that’s strategically wasted in a way that evokes Gareth Southgate’s coaching of the England football team — everyone seems to be playing out of position, and the overall approach is defensive despite the talent at hand. The striking moments are few and far between, like Tanvi’s boyfriend pinning her down during sex to ‘correct’ their power dynamic; like a lonely Kiran embarking on corny superhero and serial-killer flights of fancy; like a hotel receptionist silently showing her solidarity towards a woman searching for her cheating husband. I’d say these are glimpses of what Sharmajee Ki Beti could have been. But that isn’t true. If this film were a person, its own parents would use Kiran Rao’s Laapata Ladies as a sobering point of comparison and the real ‘Sharmajee Ki Beti.’ Be like her. Aim for balance. Work smart, not loud.