Tarla Movie Review: Huma Qureshi's Biopic of Tarla Dalal is Too Safe and Cliched For Its Own Good! (LatestLY Exclusive)

Tarla Movie Review: Directed by Piyush Gupta, Tarla is the biopic of the famous Tarla Dalal, the personality who revolutionised cookbooks in India and made vegetarian cooking a cool concept. Huma Qureshi is playing Tarla Dalal in the film, while Sharib Hashmi plays her husband Nalin. Backed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwary and Nitesh Tiwari, the film chronicles the life of the celebrity chef and television host before she gained fame, and her rise from a housewife who invented alternatives to tasty non veg dishes to lure her husband's taste-buds to winning over the nation. Huma Qureshi Rocks in Stunning Pantsuit Set For Tarla Promotions (See Pics).

Tarla wanted to do something on her own, but like most of the Indian girls of the bygone era, was married off to an engineer Nalin. Nalin is kind-hearted and dotes on his wife, and they also have three kids together, but Tarla still feels the emptiness in her life of not achieving anything on her own.

It is a cooking lesson that turns things over for her. In what is the film's eye-rolling attempt to push women empowerment restricted by the era they were living in, Tarla gives a cooking lesson to a girl and that girl makes such an impressive dish to her future mother-in-law that she agrees to let the girl pursue her dreams after marriage. The film might blame the era for taking such an approach to emerging feminism but it forgets the messaging that goes to the present set of viewers. You want to chase your dreams, girl, do you? Get into the kitchen first!

Anyway, this one girl's success in getting a husband makes other parents approach Tarla to teach their daughters to make good food. Soon enough, from cooking classes, Tarla moves to writing cook-books and earning success there, but not after making certain sacrifices in her own life.

Watch the Trailer of Tarla:

Tarla, for most of the film's runtime, is a pretty amiable, by-the-numbers biopic that makes for a one-time watch, with both Huma Qureshi and Sharib Hashmi delivering pleasant performances. But if you expect the biopic to throw more light into an enigmatic personality like Tarla Dalal, apart from the fact that she is a housewife who found success after being pushed to follow her passion by her husband, you might be disappointed. The writing around her character is very superficial in several parts, and is even more let down by the fact that Tarla feels so similar in its premise to Tumhari Sulu! 

Tumhari Sulu ain't no biopic, but it shares shockingly same plot elements with Tarla - be it a home-maker who finds a passion outside her work and succeeds at that, a supportive husband who becomes jealous of his wife's success later on, and how the protagonist's new profession plays hindrance in the upbringing of her kids. Look, I don't know much about Tarla Dalal's personal life, but if Tarla is closer to her life-story, then someone in her family should definitely sue the makers of Tumhari Sulu, that came six years back, for plagiarising her life! Huma Qureshi is Fab in Black Co-Ord Set, Tarla Actor Shares Stunning Pics On Insta.

Tarla also does little to do justice to the period setting of the events of when Tarla Dalal achieved her fame. From what I read about her, Tarla Dalal started her cooking classes in 1966 and earned nationwide success as an author in 1974, and the film shows she even gets a cooking show of her own. The thing is even though the film tries to put some of the period nuances here and there, mostly in some of the wardrobe choices, certain materials used like fountain pens and lighting, nothing else about the movie screams the era it is set or justifies this passage of time (her kids remain the same age). Instead, it rather confuses us with certain inclusions, like a working PC in an office where Nalin goes for interview that also has Windows (even though it was invented in the 80s), or for the matter, Tarla having her own cooking show when Doordarshan started small screen programming also in the '80s. The film might have moved on to that decade, but gives the viewer no hint of doing so.

But if you don't see Tarla as an accurate biopic, but of a woman defying societal expectations to create her own path, then the film is simply a decent enough viewing. There are moments here and there that work, like a song where Tarla tries to perfect a dish after many attempts, or when Nalin is reminded why he is an example to other husbands out there. But otherwise, the cliches and tired tropes don't do justice to the film.

Final Thoughts

While Tarla is mostly a sanitised biopic on a popular personality, the safe approach and the cliched screenplay does little justice to the enigma of Tarla Dalal. The fact that it resembles Tumhari Sulu in the latter half is even more frustrating. Tarla is streaming on Zee5.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 07, 2023 09:47 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).