There are two gorgeous actresses in this movie, a cooking tip I'll have to try, and lots of quirky Canadiana in the interiors. That was the joy of this movie.
Otherwise as has been posted, very bleak story about Canadian trust being portrayed as advantageous gullibility and Indian greed and corruption portrayed as universal, with a very weak story about someone like Lisa Ray playing a dedicated and accomplished diplomat being attracted to : Don McKellar!
As always, the yak-like McKeller speaks annoyingly and slowly like a stoned hobbit pondering the importance of everything he says in close-up. His character is even more loathsome: entitled, self-absorbed and useless to his bright wife, he can't cook and look after his own child at the same time. Fortunately they didn't even attempt to portray any chemistry between them, like oil and Ray + Mehta's only slightly better film 'Water'. At least there were little stings throughout the movie that the diplomat is expected to be the husband, i.e., male, but I was shocked with a feeble plot point about this accomplished character played by an actress with cancer whining about feeling fat in a sari was left in. She is literally left to fight her battles alone, and is portrayed as deserving what she gets as trying to be the bread-winning working mother. Both the writer and editor seem to be caught in an 80's or sub-continental sensibility, which is frankly repulsive to a 21st century Western eye.
I groan aloud when I see Maury Chaykin is in a movie, but fortunately his role was minuscule and completely overshadowed by the whispers of his hot aide-de-camp.
The passive-aggressive cheating servants corrupting another gorgeous woman as a PG 'Dangerous Liasons' was also difficult to watch: sometimes the plot tried to swerve into a genuine or touching moment, but quickly veered back into the venal. The ending is eye-rollingly bad: won't give away the non-surprise, but the long shot where the gorgeous, bright wife says an anachronistic 'I love you' to her useless hobbit husband is obviously a post edit and has no place in the story.
They could have made an Indian 'Eat/Drink/Man/Woman', with gorgeous people, scenery and food shots: but they didn't. A perfect opportunity to make a pretty and thoughtful film: fail. The film rolls from kitchen drama to political satire with some almost Bollywood video setups: it doesn't know what it wants, either. Mehta's films are always very polarised, obvious and ham-handed, and I gave up on them long ago, but I still feel obliged to watch Cancon as it sits there being awful in its own Canadian way. But for you, gentle reader, if you want to see a great little Canadian comedy/drama, go rent 1995's 'Blood and Donuts'.
And if I find out cooking fenugreek with tomatoes doesn't work, I'm reducing the stars to 3/10.
Otherwise as has been posted, very bleak story about Canadian trust being portrayed as advantageous gullibility and Indian greed and corruption portrayed as universal, with a very weak story about someone like Lisa Ray playing a dedicated and accomplished diplomat being attracted to : Don McKellar!
As always, the yak-like McKeller speaks annoyingly and slowly like a stoned hobbit pondering the importance of everything he says in close-up. His character is even more loathsome: entitled, self-absorbed and useless to his bright wife, he can't cook and look after his own child at the same time. Fortunately they didn't even attempt to portray any chemistry between them, like oil and Ray + Mehta's only slightly better film 'Water'. At least there were little stings throughout the movie that the diplomat is expected to be the husband, i.e., male, but I was shocked with a feeble plot point about this accomplished character played by an actress with cancer whining about feeling fat in a sari was left in. She is literally left to fight her battles alone, and is portrayed as deserving what she gets as trying to be the bread-winning working mother. Both the writer and editor seem to be caught in an 80's or sub-continental sensibility, which is frankly repulsive to a 21st century Western eye.
I groan aloud when I see Maury Chaykin is in a movie, but fortunately his role was minuscule and completely overshadowed by the whispers of his hot aide-de-camp.
The passive-aggressive cheating servants corrupting another gorgeous woman as a PG 'Dangerous Liasons' was also difficult to watch: sometimes the plot tried to swerve into a genuine or touching moment, but quickly veered back into the venal. The ending is eye-rollingly bad: won't give away the non-surprise, but the long shot where the gorgeous, bright wife says an anachronistic 'I love you' to her useless hobbit husband is obviously a post edit and has no place in the story.
They could have made an Indian 'Eat/Drink/Man/Woman', with gorgeous people, scenery and food shots: but they didn't. A perfect opportunity to make a pretty and thoughtful film: fail. The film rolls from kitchen drama to political satire with some almost Bollywood video setups: it doesn't know what it wants, either. Mehta's films are always very polarised, obvious and ham-handed, and I gave up on them long ago, but I still feel obliged to watch Cancon as it sits there being awful in its own Canadian way. But for you, gentle reader, if you want to see a great little Canadian comedy/drama, go rent 1995's 'Blood and Donuts'.
And if I find out cooking fenugreek with tomatoes doesn't work, I'm reducing the stars to 3/10.