When you uproot your life and move to a new country, part of you inevitably stays behind. It could be spiritual, physical, emotional, familial, or cultural. But whatever form it takes, that missing part lingers with you. If you have the opportunity to move back, or at least visit, the experience may be more emotional than you would anticipate. Calorie is a film steeped in that sense of reconnection as a mother and her two daughters travel to India to reunite not only with themselves but as a family. This narrative has all of the makings of a multigenerational mosaic, filled with grief, cultural dislocation, and the uneasy push and pull of family ties. However, its intimate but ambitious canvas crumbles under its own weight.
Calorie follows Monika (Ellora Patnaik) a single mother of two teens: calorie-obsessed Alia (Shanaya Dhillon-Birmhan) and rebellious Simi (Ashley Ganger). In a desperate attempt to set her daughters straight and to reconnect with their Punjabi roots, Monika sends them to India to live with their great Aunt Gurdeep (Dolly Ahluwalia) and Uncle Mohan (Anupam Kher) for the summer, while she works on a crucial project. While navigating the culture shock, family clashes, and unexpected bonds, Alia and Simi discover a hidden family tragedy that threatens to splinter the entire family.
Calorie has a lot on its plate, narratively speaking. At first glance, this family appears ordinary, with all the typical problems you might imagine. It features some mild communication issues and some mild teenage angst, but nothing serious. Yet underneath that surface, these characters are on the verge of collapse. Monika is a single mother trying to reconnect with her two teenage daughters, who are increasingly distant. Alia spends her days tracking calories and obsessively working out, while Simi, who counts the days until she can leave the house for good. None of them wants to communicate with each other, so, in a desperate ploy, they go to India to reconnect not only as a family but also to rediscover themselves culturally and spiritually with their aunt and uncle, who haven’t seen them in over a decade. On paper, this feels like a very manageable family drama. But in execution, these characters unfold into a tangle of competing threads, leaving the film feeling more overstuffed than layered.
The intention is clear, as Calorie aims to be an intimate family drama, and Eisha Marjara’s naturalistic direction certainly gives it the texture of one. However, the film remains too diffuse and emotionally distant to achieve that intimacy fully. It has all of the ingredients of a rich domestic story, but the characters spend so much time orbiting their own private dilemmas that the film struggles to find a cohesive centre. Simi wanders through the stress at night searching for an emotional spark. Alia clings to her uncle’s language and poetry. Monika attempts to bridge the widening gap between her daughters and her extended family while barely holding the balance between personal and professional obligations. Aside from the occasional argument, these women navigate their crises alone, walking a solitary path of self-discovery that rarely intersects in meaningful ways.
However, the film’s most significant shortcoming is that these journeys lead to little transformation. Only Monika, played by the quietly brilliant Ellor Patnaik, undergoes anything resembling a real arc. She is stretched thin by a job that consumes the time she longs for with her children, and her children feel her absence. Her grief secretly consumes her, so she keeps the horrifying death of her mother a secret from them as she is unable to face her trauma that has lasted nearly forty years. Returning to India forces her to somewhat confront her pain, but it isn’t until her daughters finally confront her that she can finally begin her journey of healing and catharsis. But with so many characters left untouched by meaningful change, that catharsis lands with less power than it should.
For all of its shortcomings, Calorie remains quietly compelling. Its familiar contours, its deeply personal undercurrents, and its universal longing for connection manage to cut through the film’s flaws. While the script is undercooked and its characters are underwritten, there is an undeniable warmth in the way these lives brush up against each other. That warmth, paired with Marjar’s earnest direction, gives the film enough emotional pull to make it a worthwhile journey.
Calorie arrives in select theatres on November 28.
