Sharmajee Ki Beti Review: Lightweight Feminism

Sharmajee Ki Beti's airy-fairy approach doesn't quite convince.
It's like the women are all angels readily accepting any change or transgression while the men are either super supportive or super schmucks, notes Sukanya Verma.

Films about women tend to be about fitting in a man's world, fighting odds or finding a voice.

But the lightweight feminism of Tahira Kashyap Khurrana's Sharmajee Ki Beti is steeped in her just being herself.

It's not conflict but assertion of self-worth driving the everyday experiences and ordinary crisis of its five female protagonists.

Sharmajee Ki Beti opens with a woman's voice parroting the opening words of the Mahabharata monologue that Doordarshan viewers must be all familiar with -- Main Samay Hoon... -- as a humorous metaphor for changing times. But the problems plaguing most of the characters in the story remain timeworn.

A pubescent pair of teenaged besties (Vanshika Taparia, Arista Mehta) and their respective mums -- a working woman (Sakshi Tanwar), a housewife (Divya Dutta) and a state-level cricketer (Saiyami Kher) -- form the quintet of Sharma girls sharing a common surname but varying struggles.

Warmth and wit colour the episodes of growing pangs and adulting woes across the strains of surviving either phase.

Swati (Taparia) is an unkempt 13 year old, beating herself too hard for not getting her periods yet while feeling awe over the actions of her sexually active seniors.

When not preoccupied with her tiny mop of hair, Gurveen (Mehta) is discovering new aspects about her sexuality.

Swati's middle-class, management marvel mum (Tanwar) teaches at a coaching centre and has set a reminder for everything, which includes 'me time' with her understanding husband (Sharib Hashmi).

Gurveen's Patiala transferred mummy (Dutta) is a classic case of housewife blues, ignored by her couldn't-care-less husband (Parvin Dabas).

Between these typically domestic scenarios, Tahira squeezes in Tanvi's (Kher) tomboy cricketer, going out of her way to fan her chauvinist boyfriend's (Ravjeet Singh) masculine ego.

In less than two hours, Sharmajee Ki Beti tries to bite on more than it can chew.

Tahira has a flair for breezy, slice-of-life scenarios as witnessed in her pleasing segment of the Feels like Ishq anthology but her film-making lacks technique.

And complexity.

There's almost a scattered quality to the storytelling that treats insolence and infidelity in the same measure.

Wanting to normalise menstruation and homosexuality is always appreciated but Sharmajee Ki Beti's airy-fairy approach doesn't quite convince. It's like they are all angels readily accepting any change or transgression while the men are either super supportive or super schmucks.

Preferring to see the world through rose-tinted glasses is all very well but the predictability of the motions these characters go through diminishes the significance of Sharmajee Ki Beti's goal of gently smashing the patriarchy.

What works strongly in the drama's favour is its upbeat cast of women -- young and adult -- seamlessly slipping into their roles, sometimes as a picture of grace, sometimes of rebellion.

They always seem to know what they want unlike this slight but soft-hearted movie.

Sharmajee Ki Beti streams on Amazon Prime Video.