Marvelous Monsoon Weddings
By Jan Aaron

Gaudy, boisterous and great fun, Monsoon Wedding is director Mira Nair’s (Salaam Bombay and Mississippi Masala) audience appealing tribute to both her own heritage and Bollywood’s outrageous musicals.

Sabrina Dhawan’s sassy script, deftly melds five love stories during preparations for an extravagant Punjabi wedding in New Delhi. She introduces the Verma family, headed by Lalit, (Naseeruddin Shah), the cash-challenged father-of-the bride, his vivacious, wife Pimmi (Lillet Dubey), who have agreed to go all out for the wedding of their only daughter, the beautiful Aditi (Vasundhara Das) to a young Indian professional from Houston (Parvin Dabas). Also there are a host of relatives and in-laws speaking Hindi, Punjabi and English.

In charge of the elegant wedding celebration is P.K. Dube (Vijay Raaz), a crafty catering contractor and confirmed bachelor, who falls in love with the family’s innocent young maid, Alice.

Western audiences, accustomed to prudish Indian films, will be surprised at the thoroughly modern morality here: The bride-to-be has a final affair with a callow talk show host; a sexy cousin tries to seduce a handsome relative visiting from Australia; and Lalit worries that his teen son, who likes TV cooking shows and dance, is gay.

Two others are paired by the past: The family’s benefactor Tej and a cousin Ria, who, at 28, is teased about being an old maid. At the pre-wedding festivities, Ria is forced to admit the family’s idol, raped her as a child. This causes Lalit terrible inner turmoil.

At film’s climax, the groom arrives on horseback in the torrential monsoon and the lavishly dressed bride wades through the mud, while Dube declares his love on romantic bridge amid a shower of marigold petals.

This contrasting climax is a fun send-up of an overwrought Bollywood musical to add frills to this family story.

Cinematographer Declan Quinn’s dexterous lighting and highly mobile hand held camera keep the movie buoyant, while the musical score, a hot mix of Indian styles, spices it up. Arjun Bhasin’s costumes are another treat. (114 minutes, Hindi, Punjabi, and English, released by USA Films, R, Call 777-FILM).#

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