Sharmaji Namkeen review: Rishi Kapoor's swansong is sugar, spice, and everything nice!

3.5/5

BG Sharma, a 58-year-old widower from the middle class, lives in West Delhi. He is one of the millions of faceless people caught up in the mundane routine of life. One fine day, the company for which he has worked his entire life asks him to take a voluntary retirement. Sharma, a man with many prejudices and limited knowledge, is struggling to deal with this beast known as retirement. He keeps trying to stay relevant, but he only ends up getting in the way of his two sons. The only time he truly comes into his own is in the kitchen. He is a world-class chef waiting to be discovered, unaware of his culinary prowess. Until he comes into contact with a group of happy women one day. They rekindle in Sharma a passion for cooking and life in general that had faded.

What follows is the mysterious and hilarious double life of super chef Sharma as he overcomes his prejudices as well as those of society on his journey to find meaning in life.

The opening credits of Sharmaji Namkeen start with thanking BR Chopra and Juno Chopra. If you notice, you might think about which way the film is going by crediting them. You don't need to wait much, as within a few minutes of the film, we see Satish Kaushik's character watching the climax scene of Baghban (directed by Ravi Chopra; co-written by BR Chopra), featuring Amitabh Bachchan. He says that this film, which is fodder for several memes nowadays, should be a part of the school syllabus.

In several sequences, the 2003 film is mentioned in Sharmaji Namkeen, citing that the latter is the exact opposite of Baghban. Debutant Hitesh Bhatia got this idea by looking at Boomers who are currently leading a retirement life in India. A lot of them might have their fathers at home, who have been workaholics their whole lives and don't know what to do by staying indoors.

Sharmaji Namkeen is about BG Sharma (Rishi Kapoor and Paresh Rawal), who has been asked to take a voluntary retirement from service. The man loved his job so much that he counts the days since he retired and reminds everyone else too. The single father is passionate about cooking and treats his two sons (Suhail Nayyar and Taaruk Raina) with lip-smacking food every day.

In Baghban, we see parents being divided by kids during their retirement life. While here, Sharmaji doesn't want to be furniture at home and wants to continue working as he is still passionate about making himself busy. But here too, kids expect their father to get permission if he wants to have a job during his retirement.

However, by cutting the melodrama to the most, Sharmaji Namkeen takes a slice-of-life turn and will not take away the smile from one's face throughout the film. You feel for the character, leading a dual life and also discovering so many things about himself.

He becomes a cook for a group of women who organise kitty parties at each other's houses. These women include a talented bunch, namely Juhi Chawla, Sheeba Chaddha, Ayesha Raza, Sulagna Panigrahi, among others.

Having said that, if you think watching two different actors play the same character will disrupt the flow, then you are in for a surprise. The makers established the sequences in such a way that, after a point, you might get to know whether it's Kapoor or Rawal who will be coming on the screen. Most of the indoor scenes are done by the late actor, while he features in the rest of them.

Interestingly, most of the cooking sequences are done by Kapoor, and they are very palatable. The scenes featuring him are just like a chocolate box, and they are unmissable. Towards the end, there's a sinking feeling that this is the last time we will see the legendary actor in something new on-screen.

Kapoor got into the skin of his character, and the role has been tailor-made for me. The actor gushes out the right emotions and also plays well in the sequences where he knows his cuteness will overpower him.

The same is with Rawal, who took the baton from Kapoor and completed the role with the utmost conviction, in spite of the actors' being like chalk and cheese in terms of their choice of roles and acting styles. But Rawal made sure that he was giving full justice in his way and also making his performance commendable in every way. The veteran actor brings his element and does not make a caricature out of Kapoor's performance.

Director Hitesh Bhatia, along with Supratik Sen, wrote the screenplay for Sharmaji Namkeen and made it delectable by not going over the top.

Even with subtle emotions, they brought about the best out of every actor, apart from Kapoor and Rawal. Most of them have fewer sequences than the lead stars, but everyone was just a treat to watch with fantastic dialogues. All of them showed the different lifestyles of people from West Delhi and South Delhi.

Another amazing aspect of Sharmaji Namkeen is the editing by Bodhaditya Banerjee, which is crisp and doesn't meddle with the audience's vision. It is, of course, a greater responsibility to have two different actors play the same role.

But, to be honest, Sharmaji Namkeen is not just about that. The story is so heartwarming that it's a treat from start to finish. Bhatia's story idea is pretty relatable to millennials who have parents dealing with retirement life, and it just shows how it can be frustrating for one to be at home after working for more than four decades or so.

The film also talks about how a certain section of the population has a retirement age. Well, that's the irony: the lead actors in the film are or were above 60 years of age, and they are playing this character.

Sharmaji Namkeen has a bittersweet climax, but it won't make you emotional as it celebrates who Rishi Kapoor was, and the makers made sure of that.

Sharmaji Namkeen is a slice of life that will make you smile from ear to ear. The film takes a leaf out of Baghban and makes the exact opposite of it by creating something lighter, very relatable, and happier.