Mark Reviews Movies: INDIA SWEETS AND SPICES

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 18, 2021

Writer/director Geeta Malik attempts to tackle a lot within the fairly limited framework of India Sweets and Spices. There are issues of class and generational divides and politics and familial expectations, but much of the plot revolves around the nosy, gossipy culture of the upper class—specifically, for this particular story, first- and second-generation immigrants to the United States from India.

The custom for the younger generation is that everyone who isn't one's family—either a close family friend, a family acquaintance, or a complete stranger—and of one's parents' generation is called "auntie" or "uncle." It's a sign of respect, yes, but one that also, whether intentional or not, suggests the connection of an extended family. All families have problems, but when you see everyone around you as a part of that bigger family, everyone's problems are also your business.

This world and attitude are seen from the perspective of Alia Kapur (Sophia Ali), the daughter of immigrants from India. She grew up seeing and tacitly accepting all of this as simply the way of things. Now, Alia is in college, expanding her horizons, and becoming active in political, environmental, and humanitarian efforts. Coming back home during the summer after her freshman year, Alia becomes increasingly aware of and more frustrated with how destructive, judgmental, hypocritical, and generally awful the tightly knit gossip circle of the neighborhood where she grew up actually is.

The specifics of the story are divided into Alia's home life, her romantic possibilities, and a series of parties, thrown with high frequency and all sorts of reasons around the town of Ruby Hills, a suburb of Newark. Alia can't even catch her breath upon returning home before her mother Sheila (Manisha Koirala) and father Ranjit (Adil Hussain) want her to attend a party. They're always at someone's expensive house, on a street that ends up being lined with luxury vehicles, and filled with plenty of food, dancing, and conversation. Most of it is polite, but whenever someone isn't around, the "aunties"—and sometimes the "uncles"—have a lot to say about that person's challenges and problems.

Alia and, eventually, her own family become the targets of that gossip. On one hand, there's her friendship and quick romance with Varun (Rish Shah), whose family now runs the local Indian grocery store in town. People like him and his family, to the rich folks in the area, aren't poor or unfortunate on their own terms, but they are meant to live on those terms—seen where they're supposed to be seen and never heard.

While buying cookies for a party at her family's house and becoming instantly smitten with the new guy in town, Alia invites Varun and his parents—Bhairavi (Deepti Gupta) and Kamlesh (Kamran Shaikh)—to the festivities. The rumor mill starts turning, not only because this lower-class family is at the party, but also because Bhairavi knows Sheila. They were "classmates" officially—although the awkward reunion suggests a history that's a lot deeper than that.

There are few more story threads here, and most of them mostly point this tale in the direction of melodrama. Alia's love life is one, putting her between Varun, the guy she's not supposed to be dating, and Rahul (Ved Sapru), the young man who more or less expects that they'll date and get married and make both of their families happy. That part of the story is mostly a dead end, because the real meat of Malik's screenplay is about how social expectations—including who and when and why women are meant to marry—are an element of how this gossipy culture coerces what people do. It does give Alia something to do, at least, as she starts to realize what she actually wants and who she wants to become.

The other major arc here involves Alia's discovery that her father is having an affair with Rahul's mother (played by Priya Deva). Initially, she isn't sure if she should tell her mother, but matters become far more complicated when Alia learns that Sheila knows about her husband's indiscretion—and that it isn't the first one—and has come to accept it—a semi-arranged marriage that has become an arrangement. When Alia also learns that her mother was once part of a feminist organization in India, she starts to question how things changed for Sheila and if that could be her own fate.

This development opens up a lot about and within this story, even as it's hampered by the assorted story concerns surrounding it, which put the whole thing into a more conventional corner. The mother-daughter relationship feels the most vital, in terms of these characters and the central theme upon which Malik eventually focuses. It's fascinating to watch how Sheila's secret past and repressed present force the daughter to re-consider the society in which she was raised and to which she had grown accustomed, while Alia's disappointment makes the mother stronger, more vocal, and more rebellious.

This more thoughtful material—toward the characters, their evolution, and the ideas beneath them—isn't undermined by the more straightforward and gimmicky plot elements, but they do sideline what Malik ultimately wants to say and do here. India Sweets and Spices attempts to do so much that it distracts from the central point.

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