India Sweets and Spices

I am pleasantly surprised how smart the script is. Calling this film a comedy is misleading and a mistake, but it's definitely worth a watch. It doesn't glamorize and idealize the Indian culture, it presents how rich, upper "class" is snobbish and conceited. The main character is an interesting, intelligent girl from the "upper class", whose personal life suddenly gets complicated because she falls for a poor Indian man. It's fascinating to see that the Indian diaspora keeps the old prejudices and flaws of the traditional Indian society despite living and being successful in modern America. Apparently you can get an Indian out of India but it's much more difficult to get India out of an Indian...

Imagine if the average Lifetime channel original movie actually had an occasional bout of intelligence and nuance to interrupt its cliches and stupid, unlikeable characters. That's this movie.

I enjoyed this film. Visually it's often quite beautiful, especially if you're someone like me who loves the Indian aesthetic. It's also at times amusing and at other times addressing deep issues. More than once it reminded me of what I consider to be one of the greatest films of all time, The Graduate. Not that India Sweets and Spices approaches The Graduate's greatness, but they have a few things in common. This includes a main character who is twenty-ish, exploring life and her own role in it, and grappling with the phoniness, hypocrisy and superficiality of the adults in her life. Oh, and of course, there's the scene in which she attempts to escape the world around her by exhaling bubbles while sitting at the bottom of her parents' pool.

Added to this in India Sweets is something The Graduate does not have, i.e., the implications, both subtle and not, of what women have to tolerate in a male-driven culture. The message comes across, loud and clear!

Likeable and funny. Portrayal of the Indian community hits close to home. Some of the characters are people I know or have seen in social gatherings. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

I'm giving the movie 10 stars because it's upsetting the traditionalists who don't like to see the Indian culture being shown as real people, with real problems. Not on this page, but on other pages there have been some men who don't like to see their culture come out of the closet. Well, welcome to the real world.. I know people of that culture who had arranged marriages and it can become a real misery. Not for all, but for many - this happens.

Aside from my delighting in being petty towards the other people it's a pretty good movie. Fun, lively, the protagonist actress is good and it kept my attention until the end. It's worth a watch. It's nice to see Lifetime channel make a movie where the protagonist is intelligent, gutsy, no nonsense and is courageous about her life. Her bf's mother is a gem.

Well worth a watch, enjoy.