"Girl from India" is a naive, basically old-fashioned comedy-drama dealing with the cultural clash of traditional Indian folkways and modern living in Trinidad. Though boasting an original English-language soundtrack, pic is best-suited to traditional audiences who support Bombay musicals.
Writer-director Mickey Kumar has adapted the traditional Indian film format, with ballads sung over relating the pic's "message" and various calypso numbers in a nightclub, subbing for the usual musical setpieces.
Heavily padded story has an Indian bride Rina (Sanam Suri) brought to Trinidad by a traditional father (Ralph Maraj) to wed his son Sham (Bhalinder). Because of his strict upbringing, Sham suffers intense fear and guilt regarding sex, and cannot even kiss Rina (he sees devils' masks whenever he tries), let alone consummate their marriage. He selflessly sends her out to seek satisfaction with other men rather than divorce and create a scandal.
Pic unfolds in flashbacks, recounting events leading to Rina's trial for alleged murder and prostitution. She found love (and had a baby) with an artist (Kabir Bedi), but her angered father-in-law had the lover killed and caused the situation where her killing a man in self-defense appeared to be murder.
Helmer Kumar takes a modern stance, opposing traditional folkways such as the practice of "suttee", wherein an Indian wife commits suicide on her deceased husband's funeral pyre. However, film's treatment of sex and violence is corny, lacking explicitness demanded by international audiences.
Heavily padded with comedy relief and musical numbers, film ironically is most enjoyable during these diversions, rather than when Kumar dwells on his main plot. Michael Walker as the lead's best friend is the standout in the acting department, a very funny "macho man", escaping the clutches of marriage-seeking numerous girl friends when not performing calypso numbers in a nightclub.
Remainder of the mixed Indian-West Indies cast performs with painful amateurism, turning much of the film into camp. Sanam Suri is a very beautiful woman, but she has to play dozens of scenes in tears or on the verge of crying, in a timid little voice. Bhalinder as her husband is completely unconvincing, mouthing platitudes or imbibing his Johnnie Walker Red Label booze. Evil father-in-law Maraj is a hammy windbag, stuck with a blue-grey hair rinse (to make actor look old enough) which comically changes shade from scene to scene. "Sandokan" adventure star from the Middle East, Kabir Bedi, guests effectively in silent footage as the handsome artist who fathers Rina's child.
Technical credits are acceptable, but pic's mixture of melodrama and low humor becomes too silly in the final analysis.
My review was written in January 1982 after a screening at Manhattan's Bombay Cinema.
