Entertainment / Our 2021 Roundup: We Tell You Why ‘India Sweets & Spices’ Needs To Be On Your Watchlist

Our 2021 Roundup: We Tell You Why ‘India Sweets & Spices’ Needs To Be On Your Watchlist

Entertainment Dec 29, 2021

by Matthew Currie

A young woman gains a fresh perspective on her parents and herself in writer-director Geeta Malik’s India Sweets and Spices, a breezy rom-com that doubles as a savvy portrait of the modern Indian-American family.

After a mind-expanding, booze-infused year at UCLA, Alia Kapur (Sophia Ali) flies home to New Jersey to spend the summer with her mother Sheila (Manisha Koirala) and father Ranjit (Adil Hussain). Mom is overbearing, obsessed with status and tradition, hosting lavish parties with her rich friends — and after getting a little taste of freedom on the West Coast, Alia is none to happy about being trapped in this little corner of the ’burbs for the next few months. Dad’s a bit more easygoing, having an endearingly chummy rapport with his daughter — but in the end, he defers to mom. Things start looking up for our young Alia after she meets-cute with the studly young Varun (Rish Shah), who works at his parents’ Indian grocery. When she invites Varun and his folks to her family’s next party, it causes a stir amongst the guests, who never thought they’d see some lowly grocers at one of their fancy soirées. But it also, quite unexpectedly, triggers a series of revelations about Alia’s parents — long-hidden secrets that force our heroine to see both mom and dad in a whole new light.

As mentioned, you could reasonably classify India Sweets and Spices as a rom-com. There’s a bubbly love story between two charismatic youngsters from opposite sides of the wealth gap — deftly rendered by writer-director Geeta Malik with a combination of Judd Apatow-esque hangout comedy and a few playful flourishes of Bollywood whimsy. And of course: a triangle-of-sorts between Varun, Alia and one of Alia’s childhood pals, Rahul (Ved Sapru).

Yet perhaps the most striking thing about this film is how little that romance really matters. Indeed, the breezier rom-com elements belie a much more ambitious, much more thoughtful exploration of the generational divide in this family and this little Indian-American community as a whole. Alia and her peers bristle at the traditions, labels and gender roles foisted on them by their parents, at the obsession with status and keeping up appearances (even as they themselves are doing something not so dissimilar on their Instagram feeds). More intriguing still: once Alia is set on the trail of her parents’ secret lives and untold pasts, the film turns into a savvy meditation on mothers and daughters, on the inevitable realization that your parents are more than just Mom and Dad — they’re flawed, passionate, conflicted human beings who years ago went through the same struggles you’re going through now. It’s a revelation that, painful and confusing as it may be, can ultimately bring you all closer together, and offer a better sense of your own place in this endlessly confounding world.

**We Tell You Why *India Sweets and Spices* Needs To Be On Your Watchlist: Manisha Koirala as Alia’s mom Sheila, whose prim, proper and polished veneer hides a complicated past.** Photo Credit: Bleecker Street

There’s a bit of a tonal juggling act going on here, with the comedy and the romance and the poignancy — and every so often, a ball does get bobbled. Luckily, Malik has a more-than-capable star to anchor it all. Having previously established her chops on Grey’s Anatomy and Amazon’s The Wilds, Sophia Ali dexterously shifts between sardonic wit, rom-com movie star charm and gritty, grounded soulfulness. Matching her beat for beat, Manisha Koirala handles the tricky task of a character who, by design, begins as a stereotypical disapproving mum, and slowly peeling back the layers to reveal the complex, wounded human beneath.

Hitting Canadian theatres this Friday, December 3 (following its U.S. debut in November), India Sweets and Spices is a cinematic experience that’s both playful and poignant, buoyed by a talented cast and smart, sneakily ambitious storytelling.

Main Image Photo Credit: Bleecker Street

Matthew Currie

Author

A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...

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Our 2021 Roundup: We Tell You Why ‘India Sweets & Spices’ Needs To Be On Your Watchlist

by Matthew Currie

Matthew Currie

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