Monsoon Wedding (2001)

Monsoon Wedding 
Directed by Mira Nair
Written by Sabrina Dhawan
2001/India/USA/Italy/Germany/France
IFC Productions; Mirabai Films; Keyfilms Roma; Paradis Films
First viewing/Netflix rental
#993 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
IMDb users say 7.3/10; I say 8.5/10

[box] Pimmi Verma: This wedding is driving me nuts.[/box]

I’m a sucker for romances and domestic dramas and this delivers in a big way on both counts.

Devoted but irascible family man Lalit Verma is preparing for the big Punjabi wedding of his daughter Aditi at his home in New Delhi.  On hand is goofy, quasi-hip wedding planner P.K. Dubey.  Aditi’s marriage is semi-arranged and she has not yet broken off her affair with her married boss.  Lalit’s niece Rai is not pleased to see her uncle at the wedding or his attentions to one of the little girls.  Meanwhile, various flirtations and small conflicts go on within the large extended family.

While Aditi is deciding what to do with her life, P.K. becomes infatuated with the beautiful family domestic Alice.  It is not giving away too much to say that the whole thing ends with at least one glorious wedding in the rain.

A Punjabi wedding looks like so much fun, I was wondering how I could get invited to one! The film is a very interesting mash-up of traditional and Western influences   Many of the guests and the bridegroom are home from abroad for the wedding.  But the primary impulse is a celebration of “Indian-ness”.

The film could be faulted for one too many love at first sight sub-plots but not by me.  The subtitles I used translated the Punjabi and Hindi dialogue but not the English.  Since I could not quite catch a lot of the extensive English due to the accents, possibly I was missing out.  However, between the visuals and what I did understand the film played on my heart like a violin.  Recommended.

Trailer