Review : Mistress of Spices

Rating : Poor (2.5/5)
Genre : Drama / Romance
Year : 2006
Running time : 1.5 hours
Director : Paul Mayeda Berges
Cast : Aishwarya Rai, Bylan McDermott, Zohra Sehgal, Ayesha Dharker, Nitin Ganatra, Anumpam Kher, Padma Lakshmi

MISTRESS Of SPICES (MOS) : THE MISTRESS HATH NO MAGIC

This film has a high cringe factor.

“Why won’t you talk to me spices?” Uh..er.. who won’t talk to you ? And once realization dawns, cringe big time. “Don’t punish me chillies”. “Why are you warning me chillies ?” . Cringe, cringe, cringe. Almost dissappear into sofa. Chillies glower menacingly (apparently). Threatening music in background. To me the chillies looked much the same whether they were angry or whether they were not. What do angry chillies look like anyway ? Lest it look like I am going off my rocker and having conversations with the spices in my kitchen, I’ll clarify that the above philosophical ramblings are from Ms. Rai’s profound mutterings in MOS. Her character plays Tilo, a Mistress of Spices, indoctrinated by First Mother and sent out into the world to help people.

People apparently need help in San Francisco too, so Tilo is dispatched here, and situated in a charming, Spice Bazaar, where she doles out advice, sympathy, and little packets of cumin, pepper and asafoetida, as required.

Her magical spice powers can only be used to help others, not herself. And devotion to the Mistress-hood, requires that she never touch another’s skin, or step out of the store. Besides the practical problems of living this presents (and let’s not even go there) it seemed kind of incongruous in a world where Tilo’s Prince Charming appears on a motorbike, and crashes conveniently right at her very door-step.

Tilo is ofcourse drawn to him, but the chillies won’t listen, and keep warning her to not give in to her desires. Like any other normal human being Tilo wants both, her spices and her man. And rightly so. Who would want to give up Dylan McDermott? And how can one give up achaar ? Quite impossible. Anyway, you get the drift. Does Tilo manage to quell the chillies, and their whispering, or must she listen to First Mother and return to where she came from ?

Now, although the book MOS is the least favorite of the Divakaruni books I’ve read, I must say that the film is quite a class apart. And below. One does not easily forget the awfulness of it. I also hated “Like water, for chocolate”. This whole food mixed with mysticism thing I do not get. And add Ms. Rai to the mix, and you can forget believability altogether. The reason I believe is in the medium. One can read about “threatening” spices in a book, and shrug it off, but to actually see a living, breathing Ms. Rai “talk” to the chillies, does things to your brain.

Plus Ms. Rai’s other natural (dis)abilities – she simpers, she acts coy, she puts on an accent, and the whopper – she can’t act, don’t enhance the film any. Dermott, although he fits the part visually, seems bored and tired and wanting to get out of there. The couple lack chemistry. Zohra Sehgal appears as the First Mother. A bigger misfit for the role I couldn’t have imagined. A “First Mother” I’d thought would have looked calm, composed and angelic. Sehgal is naturally crabby looking, and seems more like a backside-whupping grand-mother than the Grand Dame of Spices. Nitin Ganatra is the cabbie Haroun, and is quite accomplished. So is Ayesha Dharker, who’s Haroun’s neighbor Hameeda. Anupam Kher has a small role as Dadaji, whose visiting the store to get advice on how to keep his grand-daughter (Padma Lakshmi) from straying.

The story unfolds excruciatingly slowly. It’s hard to feel for the characters. The dialogues sound awkward and contrived. The film doesn’t flow, the action never jells, and the romance never sparkles. A truly terrible film.