India Sweets and Spices is one of the funniest and most relatable movies in 2021 and a MUST WATCH for its incredible screenplay and performances.
Written and Directed by Geeta Malik, India Sweets and Spices is an intergenerational story that is wrapped around a coming of age character at its lead, there have been many movies that delivered stories about first and second-generation migrants and India Sweets and Spices joins in the list.
In India Sweets and Spices, Alia Kapur played by the Uncharted star Sophia Ali, comes back home from college for the holidays and becomes smitten with the son of a local shop owner and invites their family over for a dinner party hosted by her own. This leads to a chain reaction of events, that has the leads confronting and uncovering the past of their families and their troubled relationships interlaced with a familiar touch of gossips and chaos that make their way out in Indian and immigrant communities.
The film also features Rish Shah who plays Carman in the Marvel Studios’ Ms. Marvel. Rish Shah plays the character of Varun Dutta, Alia’s love interest in the film. The chemistry between the leads is one of the things that standouts the most in the movie, and it is an absolute delight to watch. Varun is quite charming and very relatable but is a little opposite in the way Alia behaves. Sophia Ali’s character Alia moves throughout the movie with a strong purpose while keeping her charisma intact. This, in turn, brings the character more down-to-earth and a relatable presence in the community that is very vibrantly filled with Bollywood-esque colors and wealth.
Throughout the movie, we see Alia uncover shocking secrets about her parents and the bitter and robust past her mother’s been hiding from everyone. All of these push her into a quest for identity within herself. The humor in this movie is so well-timed and well placed. There is a particular truth bomb scene that is so well written and makes us root even harder for the character Alia. Not just Sophia Ali and Rish Shah characters, the movie is stacked with a brilliant cast of both Indian and Indian-American actors.
India’s veteran actress Manisha Koirala essays the role of Sheila Kapur, mother of Alia. Manisha Koirala does the much-needed heavy lifting and gives the story a much more diverse and emotional range than Sophia Ali. The heart of the film is centered around the relationship between Alia and her mother, which continues to evolve and touch on stronger themes about feminism and women empowerment. The story gives enough room to touch on these topics and shed some light on them.
India Sweets and Spices has a well-thought-out and well-written screenplay that gives enough room for the actors involved in this film to deliver to its fullest. The screenplay flows in a way that it leaves you expecting a certain moment in the story, only subverting your expectations to deliver an unexpected moment that is both emotional and surprisingly heartfelt. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that are perfectly spread across the run time which bring out the relatable instances for both Indian and non-Indian viewers as well.
India Sweets and Spices arrives in theaters this Friday.
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