Forbidden Tikka Masala
2018 · 16m
Directed by Rahul Chaturvedi
Tones: contemplative, tender
A strict vegetarian retiree accidentally eats chicken at her farewell party and, unable to forget the taste, sets out to find the recipe and rethinks how she lives her life.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a premise that *should* be sitcom fodder—vegetarian tastes chicken, existential crisis—but Chaturvedi refuses the easy laugh, which is either admirable restraint or a missed opportunity depending on your tolerance for quiet indie introspection.
A modest chamber piece that locates itself in the lineage of food-as-transformation cinema, though it lacks the formal sophistication or archival weight to genuinely argue with its antecedents.
The entire film hinges on the actress's ability to convey simultaneous disgust and awakening in a single bite—that fractional pause before the taste registers—and she nails it in a way that justifies the whole gentle structure around it.