Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageMonsoon Wedding (2001)
Director: Mira Nair
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
This big marquee movie - it portrays the preparations for an arranged-marriage wedding among an upper caste clan - is mostly a free-wheeling celebration of Delhi bustle, middle-class mobility and an enlivening tension between tradition and modernity. A masala of Indian screen veterans, celebs and debutants mingle in the film's mise-en-scène, teeming with love torn characters. Among the most notable, Shah is a totem of vexed loyalty as the buffeted father of the bride; Shetty is defiant when her moment comes as the repressed writer-cousin with a secret; Raaz is the 'event manager' PK Dubey, who comes down with a precipitous crush on the family's servant girl Alice. So, like The Philadelphia Story, it justifies its focus on this enchanted class with an open-door social optimism, but finally shows its backbone when it comes to testing the limits of inclusiveness. A vibrant patchwork of people, colours and moods, the film's fluid, crowded and opaque in places, for a while leaving you wondering where it might be going. Then you find the pulse. The impression of cosmopolitan modern India, of diaspora lives thrown into collision and collusion, is engaging in itself, but the emotional optimism here is the most heartening aspect of this vivacious film.Author: NB
Cast & crew
Director: Mira Nair
Producer: Caroline Baron, Mira Nair
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shetty, Vijay Raaz, Tilotama Shome, Vasundhara Das, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Parvin Dabas, Roshan Seth full cast
Duration: 113 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Has David Cronenberg turned tame?
Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?
The 10 worst date movies
Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made
Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films
Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas
10 unlikely badboy biopics
Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects
Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'
The first-time director of the brilliant new thriller discusses religious cults and robot boxing
Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day
Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing
What do you think?
Post your review now