Product Description

Naseeruddin Shah, Lilette Dubey. Mira Nair's delightful tale of a upper class Punjabi family's wedding and the relatives that come from across the globe to celebrate. 2001/color/114 min/R.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10581 in DVD
• Brand: Uni
• Released on: 2002-09-24
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 114 minutes

Amazon.com
Monsoon Wedding is a return to form for Mira Nair, director of 1988's Salaam Bombay! Nair's gift for observation of the everyday and her love for her characters make for a delightful film, which spins a web of family relationships that knit and break during a wedding at a perfect pace. The excellent performances exceed the often stereotypical roles on offer (including the incomparable Nasiruddin Shah as the harassed father, Kulbhushan Kharbanda as the comic uncle, and Shefali Chaya as the orphaned cousin). Nair's sympathetic eye for the unnoticed and the harassed is at its best with the tender romance between the servant and Dube (Vijay Raaz), the marigold-munching, upwardly mobile wedding coordinator, who brings pathos and humor to the often unseen servant classes. The handheld camera gives a docudrama feel to this celebratory look at the upper-middle-class Hindu Punjabi joint family, while paying tribute to modern Indian public culture of music, television, and, of course, "Bollywood." --Rachel Dwyer

From The New Yorker
Mira Nair's new picture has been hailed as a feelgood spree, but it's better than that-a barely stable compound of the wounding, the confusing, and the appealing. The action takes place in Delhi, where a pair of middle-class parents (Lillete Dubey and Naseeruddin Shah) work themselves into a froth over the nuptials of their daughter (Vasundhara Das). Her marriage is, of course, arranged; for all the racket and buzz of the film's modernity, it finds time to make the suggestion-bewildering, perhaps, to audiences here-that from this archaic arrangement can spring an enduring love. The groom is flying in from Houston, Texas; another relative travels from Australia, and you brace yourself for the cultural collisions. The result is a comedy, but only just. India's stressful poise between orthodoxy and innovation (listen for the clash of peacock and cell phone) leads to a devastating family fracture that is only half-healed by the celebrations at the end. In English and Hindi, sometimes within a single conversation. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker