By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Pratibha Parmar
Country: united_kingdom
Year: 2007
Running time: 94
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435706/
Michael says: “The Provincetown International Film Festival kicked off with a misstep with this cloying, clumsily scripted film about an Indian family living in Scotland. Nina returns to Glasgow from London for her father’s funeral after fleeing her family and an arranged marriage years before. Awaiting her is her gay, Bollywood-style drag queen best-friend, her mother, older brother, and younger sister, and an old friend named Lisa, who is apparently dating his brother now. She also returns to the restaurant her father owned which is on the verge of being sold. Nina and her father shared the bond of cooking, and before the restaurant is sold, Nina wants to win the Best Curry contest for a third time, which her father had secretly entered before he died. Unfortunately, her mother and brother both want to sell the restaurant, and there’s this nagging attraction Nina seems to be feeling for her friend Lisa. The two women work together to prepare for the contest, against the rest of her family’s will and slowly their attraction builds. A series of secrets are unearthed as the film plods to its finally amusing climax where the contest takes place on a cooking show similar to the popular Iron Chef program. Everything ties up neatly and there is a happy ending all around.
“Aside from a few nice visuals, the most interesting thing about NINA’S HEAVENLY DELIGHTS was listening to the Indian cast speak with a Scottish accent. The performances are serviceable, but the script they are forced to work with is so hackneyed and clichéd that they have no hope of saving it. I kept thinking of other semi-mainstream lesbian romantic comedies like SAVING FACE and IMAGINE ME AND YOU, both of which had mainstream appeal, but were much more well-written and enjoyable. 1.5
cats.
“NINA’S HEAVENLY DELIGHTS screened at the Provincetown International Film Festival”