Chutney Popcorn

ok, i have some preparation for this film before seeing it in that i am a white guy married to an Indian woman, have gay friends, and i have an affinity for independent films, but this film has great characters and lots of charm. so, it sort of feels like an independent film in that it doesn't feel glossy all over and the characters are more offbeat, those are plusses in my book. it is a very human movie about the experiences of life with other people. my wife really liked it too. if you liked this movie, another really good non-traditional Canadian-Indian movie is Masala (not Mississippi Masala) from 1991 by Srinivas Krishna.

Shout out to production and location management on this film. This movie is a little gem among similar fare with so many diverse outlooks that every scene gives you a nugget of character. The colors make this film really pop; along with Nisha's use of visual metaphor melting together seamlessly.

However, Nisha is no actor and the ADR can be pretty....uncanny at times. Like "The Room" levels of bad dubbing of lines that can break focus for many viewers.

"Chutney Popcorn" is a warmhearted, earnest, sincere story with a subtle sense-of-humor. With all the ear marks of a low budget independent film, this flick moves with serenity and honesty through the lives of some New York City dwellers including a surrogate mother, some Indian-Americans, some lesbians, and some others. Not for the mindless masses, this flick will play best with those who appreciate brave independent films.

As an Indian American and a female, I was pleasantly delighted by this movie. I found it to be very funny and especially interesting because of the lesbian themes. It surprised me to see this in the movie, because Indians generally feel uncomfortable talking about homosexuality at all. I don't think it's necessarily a bias or prejudice against it, just conservatism.

I didn't really relate to any of the characters in the movie, mostly because there were too many characters and little development of any of their personalities. But I adored Madhury Jaffrey, who was very natural and realistic as the mother. She reminds me so much of my own mother, and many of the things she says to her two daughters about marriage and family are comments my own mother's made to me. It was strangely comforting to see the ambivalence that Indians born and raised in the US feel in trying to maintain their culture while being true to themselves. Until now, I haven't seen it discussed so frankly and honestly in a movie.

I liked this movie a lot. It depicted the life of the second-generation immigration children in New York City well enough to feel for them. These are people who have no permanent roots as director Ganatra says: "These people don't feel Really at home in India because they are too American, but they don't feel really at home in America because they are Indian." Now combine this with lesbianism and surrogate motherhood and you could get a very hefty movie, one that probably would have ultimately just made fun if itself.

But on the contrary this is not the fact with this film. It is a very warm funny depiction of the troubles Ganatra's character is going through. It is funny, witty and it has a fell-good ending.

The acting is way better than average, especially by the sister (Sakina Jaffrey) and the mother (Madhur Jaffrey) of Ganatra's character. The rest of the cast is fine, too.

I was fortunate enough to be present at a screening of this feature with afterwards a Q&A session with Director Nisha Ganatra and Writer Susan Carnival. In this session Ganatra explained that this film was kept light-hearted on purpose, they knew that they could make this into this incredibly heavy piece, but they chose not too. This shines a whole different light on the movie.

A fine film, see it.

8/10