8:00 PM, 18th September, 2002
Aditi, the daughter of a well-off merchant, accepts an arranged marriage with a son from an even more well-off family, and relatives flock to New Delhi from all over India - and the world - to attend the four-day wedding. That's basically the story. I can remember many of the details (the wedding planner who eats the floral decorations), but I can't quite recall what the film is meant to be about; my main impressions were of colourful, raucous chaos, and of rain. I also can't tell if the film is very Indian, or entirely universal. If you have the vaguest idea what the term 'extended family' means, almost every detail will be strangely familiar. Surprising credit: the music is by Mychael Danna, whose films include Ride with the Devil and The Ice Storm - but this time, his score is full of tuneful, brassy gusto.
Henry Fitzgerald