Rating : ⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama
Year: 2024
Running time: 2 hours
Director: Tahira Kashyap Khurana
Cast: Divya Dutta, Sakshi Tanwar, Saiyami Kher, Sharib Hashmi
Kid rating: PG-15
The film is about three women with the last name of Sharma – Jyoti Sharma, Kiran Sharma and Tanvi Sharma. Kiran Sharma (Dutta) has just moved from Patiala to Mumbai about a year back and has yet to make friends and make a life for herself. She is for now, a housewife busy supporting husband and daughter Gurveen. Then there is Jyoti Sharma (Tanwar) who is a teacher at a coaching institute and mother of the whiny Swati Sharma. Tanvi Sharma (Kher) is a state female cricketer. She has a boyfriend who wants her to be more feminine and womanly although he says that he’s in love with her.
All these three women live in the same building and know each other marginally. The film is about their urban experience, the way they go through life buffetted by its demands, the demands of the people around them, and how they find peace and resolution to their problems.
It’s an interesting concept, and it’s nice for once to see a woman making a film about other women. The women are the stars and the men are supporting characters.
The film is enjoyable, but predictable. At times a little too pat and annoying. The younger Sharma girls – Gurveen and Swati are a whiny, spoiled lot. The older Sharma women are a lot stronger, more resilient and patient.
The film does get into juvenile teeny bopper territory when it deals with problems faced by Gurveen and Swati. And at times it gets a little too overdone like in the story of Kiran Sharma, and her taciturn husband. Dutta is a fine actress but she overwhelms in certain scenes and underwhelms in others and because she’s a fine actress, I don’t think it’s her – it’s the director.
Saiyami Kher really fit her role. She does very well and her storyline is quite interesting to watch, but unfortunately not as well fleshed out as I’d liked. And then there is Sakshi Tanwar playing Jyoti, as the teacher, who’s always looking for approval in her bratty daughter’s eyes. Jyoti just takes it and takes it and takes it until realization dawns on her daughter – which I thought was real namby-pamby. Like whatever happened to parenting?
I have mixed feelings about Sharmajee ki Beti. It does raise important issues in female urban existence but gets too silly and ham-handed at times. Interesting stories and predicaments are hinted at, but given a surface level treatment. Also, I’m not dazzled by star power, storyline, pacing or direction. I’m deeming it a mediocre watch.
I hope director Khurana will get better with every film she directs, but this one is not something to write home about.
Kidwise: Clean.
