Bollywood/Hollywood Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)September 11th, 2003
BOLLYWOOD/HOLLYWOOD
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten
Grade: B-
Magnolia Pictures
Directed by: Deepa Mehta
Written by: Deepa Mehta
Cast: Rahul Khanna, Lisa Ray, Rishma Malik, Moushumi Chatterjee, Dina Pathak, Kulbhushan Kharbanda
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 9/10/03
With so many jobs formerly held by Americans going abroad, it's a relief to know that one thing the U.S. does right here at home is to produce such a large number of movies that the world's imagination is staggered. Guess again. The celluloid factories of India, principally located in Mumbai (nee Bombay) knock out three moves a DAY. Not that too many of them could match up to such recent American charmers as "Gigli" and "Marci X," but then again considering the pure escapism that leaves an audience with a smile at the conclusion, you could spend a day doing a lot worse than sitting in at an extravaganza of songs sung for the heck of it, hitched to melodrama that could shame the likes of afternoon TV.
With "Bollywood/Hollywood, director Deepa Mehta plays with the conventions of East Indian music-drama by combining the essentially American theme of Garry Marshall's 1990 film "Pretty Woman" (wealthy, cold-blooded business tycoon hires Hollywood hooker as a companion for a week) with the more prudish motifs of Indian movies. What emerges is a mesh which starts out messy, the various characters in the same room talking to one another as though they are on different blocks, but which like Seabiscuit picks up in midstream, crossing happily over the finish line. The result on the whole is an uneven comedy of manners, but a loving entertainment especially when compared to recent, overly stereotyped Indians- in-the-west stories like "Where's the Party Yaar").
The tried-and-true concept of tradition-breaking young people fighting the rigidity of their parents is given life when Toronto- based, millionaire fiber-optics executive Rahul Seth (Rahul Khanna) loses his white, Canadian girl friend Kimberly (Jessica Pare) in a freak accident, allowing his domineering mother (Moushumi Chatterjee) to push her son's nose toward a proper Indian girl. When Rahul, drowning his sorrows at a bar, is picked up by the assertive Sue (Lisa Ray), who Rahul thinks is ethnically Spanish, he hires her to become his fianc??? for a few days in order to satisfy his mother and his even more critical grandmother (the late Dina Pathak).
Since Sue has no trace of an accent, a speech that could fit quite well in Nebraska, her striking looks matching her confident personality, Rahul is able to convince everyone in his family that their "engagement" was made in heaven. The plot follows the conventions of western comedy (the two principals stay relatively aloof until they realize their mutual attraction) while the songs appearing suddenly for no reason at all except to make the audience smile are strictly from the culture of the great South Asian country. Another convention from the land of Krishna as well as Elizabethan England and quite a few recent American gems is the appearance of ghosts, namely those of Rahul's dad and the young man's former fianc???.
If "Bollywood/Hollywood" lacks the polish of Daisy von Scherler Mayer's "The Guru" (an Indian dance teacher comes to America seeking fame in the movies but lands in a porno film) and if the dancing is more claustrophobic, on balconies rather than in the grand ballroom, blame budgetary restrictions. Given the chemistry between Rahul Seth and Lisa Ray and a few surprising twists, "Bollywood/Hollywood" is a welcome feel-good film with appropriately gorgeous saris, beautiful women, and catchy, albeit scaled-down song-and-dance performances.
Not yet rated. 105 minutes.(c) 2003 by Harvey Karten at
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