Genre : Romance
Year : 2009
Running time : 1 hour 45 minutes
Director : James Dodson
Cast : Anupam Kher, Shriya Saran, Jesse Metcalfe Kid rating : PG-13
THE OTHER END OF THE LINE : Worth hanging up on !
Jessica David talks to Granger Woodruff, over the phone. She is almost in love with his voice, and he wants to meet her for drinks. The catch – Jessica is not really American Jessica but Indian call-center employee, Priya Sethi, complete with Amrikan accent and knowledge of Amrikan culture, etiquette and movie stars. And she’s helping Granger sort out his credit card theft issue, while surreptitiously checking him out on the web.
Bangalore based Priya, being pushed into an arranged marriage with a tied-to-Mama’s-pallu suitor, decides to throw caution and parental disapproval out the window and head out to the US to meet Granger. However since he isn’t expecting an “Indian” Jessica, complications arise. The two do get to meet in total Bollywood fall-over-each-other style (and under false pretenses), but love is quite another matter . . .
Now, romantic comedies abound. So why should you see this one? No reason at all. The chemistry is non-existent, the storyline involves flights of fancy and logical lapses, and the acting is mediocre. Besides watching perpetually pleasant Priya turn into a coy, simpering desi girl in the presence of gorgeous Granger got tiring after a while.
Ashok Amritraj produces this jaded bit of filmdom. The story is pretty cliché-ridden from the over-strung Dad to the patriarchal future in-laws. And the quality, the overall feel of the film is very average. While most parts of the movie are passable – yeah, they won’t have you swooning in delight – some are so ineptly done, that they are almost gauche. James Dodson decides to lay on the whole Indian bit a little thick.
Shriya Saran playing Priya is nothing out of the ordinary; she’s the pretty girl next door, but without that quality which would separate her from the pack. And Jesse Metcalfe (from Desperate Housewives) playing Granger is OK. Anupam Kher is great always, but he’s been given this eccentric, overwrought Dad’s role, so you can imagine how it goes.
All that said, my biggest issue with this film is it’s predicatability. Another love story with the honor-ridden, what-will-people-say, izzat-minded desi parents and a girl wanting the unsuitable? Ouch. I would tolerate inept acting and direction if only to watch something new, with decent emotional grounding. If I could feel a glimmer of what Priya-Granger were feeling, or even get a whiff of their blooming (and you can take that any way you will !) romance I’d be a happy couch potato. But no, nada, nyet – all that they feel is expressed very amateurishly, and in a very limited fashion. Where is that rumbling passion that would make you toss aside parents/girlfriend ? Not in this film.
And it’s not like I expected Dodson to deliver it served warm and fuzzy, but one can hope, can’t one ?
A very been-there done-that film; an Indian “Pretty Woman” if you will – only there ain’t no oomph; Shriya isn’t a Roberts and there isn’t a Gere to dream of post-movie.
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