[year/rating] 2002 PG-13 [genre] Weirdass Romanticom [director] Deepa Mehta [starring] Rahul Khanna Lisa Ray Ranjit Chowdhry Rishma Malik

Tagline

Nothing is what it appears to be.

Summary Capsule

It's a romantic comedy with a case of mistaken identity... featuring a gigantic Indian wrestler and a multicultural drag queen musical number.

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PoolMan's Rating: It's just not fair... why should my IQ suffer so?
PoolMan's Review: There's a real denial of reality in Canada right now. We have this serious patriotic love of Canadian-made movies, which simply MUST be the best and most artsy in the world, as evidenced by the fact that exactly nobody watches them. The National Film Board is great and everything, but unless it's got "Atom Egoyan" prominently stamped on top (or it features Leslie Nielsen curling), just about no one will ever take a real interest. Which is a shame, as there really are some amazing examples of Canuck cinema. Bollywood/Hollywood, however, is not one of these.

"Remember that excellent gag on The Simpsons where they're watching the Indian movie, and the hero breaks into the villain's house, everyone looks around all shifty-eyed, and then they all break into a dance number?"

Filmed and set in Toronto, Ontario, B/H (because the whole thing is proving remarkably difficult to type with my coffee-addled fingers) doesn't try for a moment to hide its collection of heritages. One the first shots of the movie is the CN Tower, so it's not like they're pretending Toronto is actually Chicago with cleaner air. But beside this, the entire movie is steeped in Bollywood culture.

Now, for the uninitiated, Bollywood is the Indian equivalent of Hollywood. Remember that excellent gag on The Simpsons where they're watching the Indian movie, and the hero breaks into the villain's house, everyone looks around all shifty-eyed, and then they all break into a dance number? I've seen enough local cultural TV to tell you that's pretty much how they all go. And the industry is HUGE. It's all musicals, all the time.

So B/H seems to be a bit of a satire of the proper Bollywood form. Sort of. At times, it's EXACTLY the Bollywood form. At times, it goes so far off track... well, let's just say it's confusing.

Right from the start, things are bloody weird. We see young Rahul comforting his father on his death bed. In and amongst the non-stop sports euphemisms Dad spouts, he makes his son promise to honour his family. Flash forward a few years, and Rahul is a millionaire trying to convince his family to accept his lily-white popstar intended bride. However, they reject her, and shortly thereafter, she dies in a freak levitating accident. Yep, you read that right.

So Dad's ghost comes back to guilt Rahul into getting married anyways, dead love of his life be damned. And his mother threatens to cancel his sister Twinky's wedding if he can't get engaged to a nice Indian woman. After a few attempts at an arranged marriage, Rahul gets the bright idea to hire a Spanish escort girl named Sunita, who looks Indian, to pose as his new intended. They naturally hate each other, but Rahul hopes to maintain the illusion long enough that his sister (pregnant with her fiancé's baby) can get married and avoid scandal.

Got all that? Good. Because that's the extent of the NORMAL part of the script. Remember when we started goofing around with the Fanta Shokata clips on the Forum? Buckle up, you ain't seen nothing yet.

The rest of the movie is a descent into confusing madness. Sunita turns out to actually be Indian, and ingratiates herself to everyone in Rahul's family except Rahul. Rahul's driver and confidante, Rocky, who is also helping engineer the whole charade, turns out to be famous drag queen. And Sunita's awful family life comes to light, showing us that she's in her current situation as a result of refusing an arranged marriage to a pro wrestler. All the while, white, handwritten text randomly pops up on the screen for any number of purposes (such as showing us the wrestler's website, announcing a character's mood, or starting up a musical number), Rahul's grandmother spouts lines from Shakespeare, and musical numbers pop up at the most inexplicable times. Oh, and a woman with a martini shows up at every scene with any kind of gathering whatsoever in the movie and says "What a bunch of losers". Completely out of context. Then she disappears. A few times.

It all comes together in standard fashion, so if you can't imagine how Rahul and Sunita's relationship turns out by the end, you probably need a drool cup. I can recommend Bollywood/Hollywood for maybe a substance-laced first viewing (and some pretty good one-liners that there's no way I'm going to go back and get), but beyond that, I'm stumped how this thing ever got made.

I'm sorry ma'am. You've got a flamingo infestation. We have to leave before they mate. Damn, I left a blue sock in with my laundry! Alas poor Yorick, I knew... hey, where'd my skull go?

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• The 'What a Bunch of Losers' Girl!
• Random white text! What?
• They actually do drop Atom Egoyan's name during the movie.
• Jedi spirits, or deceased father and fiancée? You decide!

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

Well, that depends on how much you value your sanity. Rocky gets one last musical number in drag, during which the entire cast - and film crew - wander on screen and have a party. The song that gets played over top of this is the musical equivalent of psychological damage, as Rocky sings in a full lisp "Hello Mister, how do you do?" over and over, interspersed with what I assume is Hindi.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

We all had a good laugh when Killer Khalsa's web address flashed up on screen... until I actually typed it into my web browser. Go ahead and visit www.killerkhalsa.com... it's not related to the movie, but it's the actual website of the wrestler who plays Sunita's arranged fiancé. There's pictures of him with lots of wrestlers you probably would recognize. Oh, and for more web craziness, go to www.bollywoodhollywoodmovie.com and you'll hear the drag queen end credits song looped over and over and over again. It's hypnotic, you know.

In researching the movie a bit, I came across a Sikh website that had posted a review. The reviewer in question was deeply concerned about the fact that all the Hindus in the movie (the Seth family, most of the main characters) were all portrayed as nice people, while the only big Sikh character (Mr Singh, Sunita's father) is portrayed as an abusive goof until the end of the film. Dunno, they all seem pretty silly to me.

Groovy Quotes

The WABOL Girl: [appears randomly and repeatedly] What a bunch of losers. [leaves]

Rocky: Bolly, holly, holly, bolly. Different wood, same tree.

Soundtrack Review

We actually had a Bollywood enthusiast in our midst while we watched this movie, and she quite enjoyed the musical portions of the movie. They are pretty standard Bollywood fare. But she was as confused as the rest of us for pretty much everything else.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Bend It Like Beckham
• The Guru