Tarla movie review: Tarla Dalal’s incredible story deserved a better film

Does the film then tap into the stirring journey of the self-made entrepreneur who whipped a culinary empire out of her natural talent for cooking at a time when women were far more deeply shackled into domesticity? No. The film’s gaze is painfully perfunctory and generic. It has been homogenised enough to fit the prevalent template of “inspiring women-centric films” robbing it of all individual personalities. You can easily swap Tarla with any number of films that you can think of. Tumhari Sulu (2017), Panga (2020), Nil Battey Sannata (2015), Dangal (2016), even Mary Kom (2014). Their hearts might have disparate callings, but all these films share the same soul. Tarla’s real tragedy is that it has no soul. Devoid of any spark, it fails to deliver even on its most basic promise—dicing patriarchy and serving entertainment with a dash of motivation.

The film’s narrative voice is a part of the problem too. Tarla tries hard to establish cooking as a tool to upend gender oppression and servitude when the reality has been the exact opposite for generations. Cooking well can help women negotiate everyday freedoms, it suggests. I disagree. Being a good domestic cook hardly gets you anywhere out of the house. Women breaking out of the kitchen has been the real revolution, not staying within it.

Tarla Dalal was a univocal advocate of vegetarianism. But instead of focusing on the why of the debate, writers Piyush Gupta and Gautam Ved decide to demonise meat-eaters. A scene featuring Tarla’s husband Nalin Dalal (Sharib Hashmi) stealthily eating mutton at his office reminded me of Ranveer Singh’s barbaric Khalji from Padmaavat (2018). The film also reduces Tarla’s knack for making the best of world cuisine accessible to the Indian palette to just making curries tempting enough to convert her meat-loving spouse.

Huma Qureshi, who sizzled as the titular femme fatale in Vasan Bala’s Monica, O My Darling (2022) fails to bring any of the pop or spunk to Tarla. Barring her all-too-distracting protruding teeth, it’s a forgettable performance. But the writers are as much to question here. Her Tarla is agonisingly underwritten—we are never shown how she fell in love with cooking or her relationship with it. In fact, the portrayal is so dismissive of food that you begin to question if she loves making it at all.

The film spends a lot of time in building her relationship with her husband Nalin. But that is devoid of any real spark or conflict too. Though Sharib Hashmi is effective as the supportive husband who, as Tarla finds success, begins to falter, it is unfair to expect him alone to elevate a script this lacklustre. A beloved cook-show host and the author of 100 cookbooks that sold over 10 million copies, the late Tarla Dalal’s story deserved a better telling than this. However, since we are discussing food films, I recommend you watch The Lunchbox (2013), Cheeni Kum (2007), Sharmaji Namkeen (2022), Once Again (2018), or Chef (2017) for a lasting aftertaste.