Monsoon Wedding (2001)

All I recalled learning of this one was that my mom had seen it and reported that people in India apparently know how to put on lavish parties. I didn't need her to tell me that India favors spectacle. Still, it sounded potentially interesting.

Don't read too much into the title: While rain eventually falls, it doesn't affect the plot. Or rather the four or five plots, which might constitute a metaphorical monsoon. The overarching theme is preparation for the New Delhi wedding of Aditi (Vasundhara Das) and Hemant (Parvin Dabas), neither of whom seems to mind that it's an arranged marriage, tho Aditi needs to remind herself why she didn't go another route. That lack of concern may be just as well, because there are enough other concerns flying around, starting with the price of the celebration, which mainly worries Aditi's dad, Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah).

The scenario may be ripe for antics, but the film is definitely more drama than comedy. I get the impression it tries for credibility first and foremost, so the moments of humor are almost incidental. One arc in particular is quite serious. Let's just say I guessed correctly when an older man (Rajat Kapoor) was much happier to see a young woman (Shefali Shah) after many years than vice versa. And he doesn't get punished nearly enough, for reasons I can understand if not forgive.

A clearer sign of differences in values from the U.S. is Lalit's disgust at his early teen son (Ishan Nair) wanting to dance and grow up to be a chef. Evidently, in India, even professional cooking is much more of a woman's thing. And they're certainly bigger on traditional gender roles there.

Probably the most amusing elements connect with P.K. Dubey (Vijay Raaz), a quirky wedding planner who has trouble getting all his workers to do what they must -- not that he's so much more responsible. He gains a crush on a household maid (Tillotama Shome), who's less sure how to feel about him. To my mind, they get a better if simpler love story than the main couple. And Raaz does an extensive ad lib.

If you don't go for Bollywood, you may be in luck: This is a joint production and hardly like other movies made in India that I've seen. It runs less than two hours. There are no musical sequences. And the director is a woman, so it's more attuned to female characters than usual.

I have two chief complaints. First, multiple plotlines means rather little time to devote to each. I find that such sets tend to work better in anthologies, where we get the stories completely in sequence and don't have to keep track of where they've left off. Otherwise, they can feel like they take longer to depict than they ought. This is especially bad in dramas with little action other than talking.

Speaking of which, my second complaint is that unlike in most Indian movies where the dialogue rapidly fluctuates between English and another language, very little of the English is subtitled. You have to stay alert and listen through heavy accents at a moment's notice. Also, some of the few subtitles for English needlessly change a word or two. That's not really confusing, but it is distracting.

I could take or leave MW. It's respectably done, but it was never exactly my type. Nor does it appear all that likely to be referenced anymore, at least in my circles.