Monsoon Wedding Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)March 11th, 2002
MONSOON WEDDING
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As the Punjabi Verma family prepare their New Delhi home for the arranged wedding of daughter Aditi (Vasundhara Das) and the international guests it will bring, tradition butts heads with the modern world and Lalit Verma (Naseeruddin Shah) experiences the universally known headaches encountered by all fathers of the bride in Mira Nair's Venice Golden Lion winner, "Monsoon Wedding."
Mira Nair, director of the Academy Award nominated "Salaam Bombay," rebounds from her disappointing last two films with this joyously messy look at a contemporary Indian family. "Monsoon Wedding" would have benefited from some cutting in its draggy midsection, but the delights it has to offer far outweigh any flaws.
The film opens as Lalit laments the breaking down of a floral arch as it dumps marigold petals upon his head. He screams for wedding planner P.K. Dube (Vijay
Raaz), a sleazy, obsequious, cell phone toting businessman who disses his clients behind their backs. These two men with their opposing perspectives will ground Nair's film in surprising ways.
The pretty bride has agreed to the arranged marriage to a Houston engineer in order to get away from India and the married lover she's split with even as she
continues the affair. Her cousin Ria (Shefali Shetty) is keeping a hawk's eye on Uncle Tej (Rajat Kapoor), a respected family benefactor giving undue attention to a pre-adolescent girl. Another cousin, Ayesha (Neha Dubey), is flirting outrageously with Rahul Chadha (Randeep Hooda), a nephew returned from
Sydney whom Lalit deems an idiot. Lalit's also unhappy that his younger chubby
son is interested in cooking and dancing rather than mathematics, but wife Pimmi (Lilette Dubey) protects him. Brother-in-law C.L. (Kulbhushan Kharbanda,
"Lagaan") unsuccessfully tries to don a veneer of sophistication which prospective in-law and father of the groom Mohan Rai (Roshan Seth, "Ghandi") exudes effortlessly. Bridegroom Hemant (Parvin Dabas) spends his time trying to get Aditi alone in order to woo her. Meanwhile, the Vermas' lovely and graceful maid Alice (Tilotama Shome) has caught the eye of P.K. Dube who becomes a man truly transformed by the power of love.
Nair's bright and colorful document of the four days leading up to a wedding invites the audience in as extended guests. Sabrina Dhawan's debut screenplay artfully mixes comedy and musical numbers with seriously dramatic storylines featuring adultery and incest. It's a neat little trick that the romance between a maid and event planner upstages the main event and that we have no trouble believing that a Cosmopolitan-reading career woman could find happiness in a wedding arranged by her parents.
The cast is exceptional with Shah's endearingly overwhelmed Lalit and Raaz' amazing character arc as Dube the standouts among the men. Shetty's powerful Ria and Shome's positively luminous Alice give the most dazzling female performances.
The film looks terrific with Director of Photograph Declan Quinn's camera alternately employing a hand held documentary style with smoother, gliding takes. Production Designer Stephanie Carroll ("Kate and Leopold") again mixes the old and the new with the almost garish colors of a traditional Indian wedding amidst a modern home, ably assisted by costume designer Arjun Bhasin ("Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love") who follows suit.
"Monsoon Wedding" is a joyous occasion.
B+
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