Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Chopsticks’ on Netflix, a Bland Indian Coming-of-Age Comedy Starring Mithila Palkar as a Naif

With Chopsticks, Indian actress Mithila Palkar hops from one Netflix Original to another. She’s one of the anchors in Little Things — an internet hit series scooped up by the streaming service for its second season — and here plays a naive young woman forced to learn a few streetwise lessons after her car is stolen.

CHOPSTICKS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We meet Nirma (Palkar) at the auto dealership, fussing over the unlucky number combination on the license plate of her brand-new Hyundai. It may be a sign. She drives away, chatting with her mother on the phone — “Wear a helmet for a week or so” and “keep the plastic on the seats” are bits of advice Nirma shrugs off. She listens to a self-improvement program: “When shit happens in my life, I turn it into fertilizer,” a pleasant voice says, urging Nirma to repeat the phrase. That may also be a sign.

Nirma, however, is clueless to such foreshadowing. The car still has the gift-wrap bow on the hood when she hands the keys to a thief, believing he’s a parking valet. Time to make some fertilizer!

The cops are no help of course, so Nirma, desperate and crestfallen, follows a lead to a handsome and peculiar fellow known only as Artist (Abhay Deol). He has a scummy apartment with a massive, pristine, state-of-the-art kitchen. He’s a chef, but also a crook — he puts his ear up to a safe, listens for its “heartbeat,” then opens it without tools or explosives. He’s one of those types who knows people who know people who know people, and helps Nirma navigate Mumbai’s underground in a quest to find her little red auto before it’s scrapped.

Meanwhile, Nirma struggles to earn any respect at her job, where she works as a Mandarin translator and tour guide. She doesn’t seem to have any friends outside her odd “working” relationship with Artist, who, for some mysterious reason, is motivated to help transform her from a perennial mark for ne’er-do-wells to a more worldly and perceptive person. Their snooping leads them to a gangster (Vijay Raaz) whose criminal network traffics in stolen cars; he has a beloved goat that’s taken a shine to Nirma’s car, so it’s a good thing she kept the plastic on the seats.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Nirma is from a long line of movie naifs a la Bridget Jones, Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada and Audrey Tautou’s Amelie Poulain in Amelie.

Performance Worth Watching: Raaz’s performance is a classic case of a supporting character spicing a bland movie with a welcome splash of color and eccentricity.

Memorable Dialogue: “That guy who made the Slumdog movie should be smacked,” a man on the streets of a Mumbai slum says as Nirma guides a group of Chinese tourists through the streets.

Single Best Shot: A gorgeous wide-angle pan of urban Mumbai beneath an overcast sky puts Nirma and Artist on a rooftop, where he teaches her a guru-esque lesson about choice and circumstance.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The screenplay for Chopsticks actively works against Palkar and Deol’s affable performances. We never get a firm grasp of their characters’ unusual friendship; Nirma isn’t paying Artist, and there’s no romantic tension, so what’s his motivation to help? He doesn’t seem particularly charitable — or crooked, actually — and is curiously blank.

Nirma clearly needs to dig in, get her hands dirty and figure out who she is and what she wants, but there’s very little subtext. She struggles at work, she struggles in her personal life, she struggles to use a pair of (WARNING: titular symbolism incoming) chopsticks, which she apparently believes would make her more relatable to her professional clientele. But Palkar isn’t asked to do much beyond wear a quietly wide-eyed and/or sad expression — and accidentally spray herself with mace, in a clumsy attempt for a laugh.

Additionally, the plot is so low-stakes, a game of Uno between grade-schoolers is more suspenseful. Raaz’s character is more goofy than menacing, so there’s little sense of risk or danger. Scenes are drawn out for no reason, and the comedy is poorly timed and awkwardly staged. There’s a casual wackiness to the proceedings, and director Sachin Yardi fails to commit to any specific tone. For the third act, Yardi and co-writer Rahul Awate throw together a harebrained scheme to retrieve the car, and it’s poorly conceived and executed. The movie aims to be a clever coming-of-age story, but ultimately is a dysfunctional collection of sequences, almost haphazardly cobbled together.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Chopsticks‘ myriad problems illuminate a desperate need for another draft or three of the screenplay.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Chopsticks on Netflix