One Dollar Curry

With its seamless blend of knowing naivety and open disingenuousness, this dispensable, if amiable, mainly English-speaking comedy-drama careers through the economic, social and amorous adventures of young Sikh ‘political refugee’ Nishan (Vikram Chatwal). Newly arrived in Paris, our hero falls under the questionable influence of Haitian-Muslim Fixer (Trevor Stephens) – sample advice: ‘Be always bigger than tragedy!’– and cooks up a fake history as the seventeenth in a line of great Indian chefs. Love interest comes in the form of Gabrielle Wright’s Mauritian-Irish-French-English television interviewer, who, for her own reasons, is happy to house Nishan in relative luxury, until the arrival from India of his betrothed, a knock-out dancer. It’s a cheerful, unoriginal and predictable film; writer-director Singh doesn’t allow social realities to obscure a good set piece – the ‘song of revenge’ dance or a makeshift Hindu cremation on the banks of the Marne – nor does he ignore the convenience of accident. The cast look like they’re on happy pills, though ocassionally consternation, disappointment and bemusement are added to their range of facial responses.