Chutney Popcorn

"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.

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.

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

I recently happen to come across this film in Blockbuster. I never heard of the film before...why is that? I now own it and have seen it several times. On the whole I enjoyed it very much. My only complaint is that there are a few audio moments that are hard to grasp. The music chosen is tasteful and fits quite well. All the actors are wonderful. I loved seeing Jill Hennessy in something other than "Law and Order." What a difference! This is a very credible story and unfolds with dignity, humor, and sensitivity. I hope to see more of Nisha's work. Keep your talent out there!

For what this film is -- a low-budget indie targeted mostly at the expanding lesbian audience -- this isn't too bad of a film. Not my cup of tea, but there's an earnestness and grit that this production has that you can't help respecting.

That being said --

I felt that the central character of Rena was almost Job-like in dealing with family issues, and that most people would have blown off the family by that point. I certainly had a hard time believing that anyone would have offered to carry a surrogate pregnancy for a sister as demeaning and awful as Rena's. I also felt that the actress playing Rena (also the director) was half-asleep during most of the movie. The part needed more energy.

Most of the rest of the principals turned in good performances, especially Jillian Hennessey from Law & Order (I almost didn't recognize her without the dark hair and business suit). Some of the peripheral characters were Offbeat-stereotype lesbians; not much to work with there. The script suffered from some ridiculous dialogue and situations. The worst was probably in the waiting room, where two of the minor characters crudely act out a birth (in front of the two grandmothers, no less) and then petulantly wonder why Rena's taking so long. Come on, these are lesbians, not idiots. I think they understand the birth process a little better than that. I think children of eight understand the birth process better than that, and have better manners as well.

Like I said, not my cup of tea, and has some serious shortcomings, but it was a good effort and is worth a watch, if you don't mind the subject matter.