Monsoon Wedding [2002]

Comedy, Drama, Romance

Naseeruddin Shah	Lalit Verma
Sameer Arya	Vikram Mehta
Parveen Dabaas
Neha Dubey	Ayesha Verma
Randeep Hooda	Rahul Chadha
Lillete Dubey	Pimmi Verma
Shefali Shetty	Ria Verma
Vijay Raaz	Parabatlal Kanhaiyalal 'P.K.' Dubey
Tillotama Shome	Alice
Vasundhara Das	Aditi Verma
Parvin Dabas	Hemant Rai
Kulbhushan Kharbanda	C.L. Chadha
Kamini Khanna	Shashi Chadha
Rajat Kapoor	Tej Puri
Kemaya Kidwai	Aliya Verma
Ishaan Nair	Varun Verma
Roshan Seth	Mohan Rai
Soni Razdan	Saroj Rai
Rahul Vohra	Uday Verma
Natasha Rastogi	Sona Verma
Vimla Bhushan	Veena Verma
Kulbushan Kharbanda
Tilotama Shome

Director	Mira Nair
Producer	Robyn Aronstam; Caroline Baron; Mira Nair
Writer	Sabrina Dhawan

Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding is a return to the form of Salaam Bombay!, her 1988 feature. Nair's gift for observation of the everyday and love for her characters makes for a delightful film, with the whole web of family relationships that knit and break during a wedding being spun at a perfect pace.

The excellent performances exceed the often stereotypical roles on offer; the incomparable Nasiruddin Shah as the harassed father, Kulbhushan Kharbanda as the comic uncle, or Shefali Chaya as the orphaned cousin. Nair's sympathetic eye for the unnoticed and the harassed is at its best when showing the tender romance between the servant and Dube (Vijay Raaz), the marigold-munching upwardly-mobile wedding coordinator, who brings pathos and humour to the often unseen servant classes. The handheld camera gives a docu-drama feel to this celebratory look at the upper middle class Hindu Punjabi joint family, while paying tribute to modern Indian public culture of music, television and of course "Bollywood".

On the DVD: The viewer should watch the film once with Dolby Digital 5.1, then again with the director's commentary, with its excellent social analysis and fascinating anecdotal history. The trailer and behind the scenes are much less interesting. It would have been good to have had a full soundtrack of the songs but the viewer will have to buy the CD. --Rachel Dwyer