Weekend at Namastey London
As a movie it does not even give you a headache its simply unaffecting except of course in one or two parts where i was impressed…by the dialogues or the discussion.
Best was the argument between Rishi Kappor and his wife wherein he keeps blaming the wife for the daughter becoming as she has and the repartees by the wife are excellent about Indians in general and men in particular.
Parts where there is the statement how they want to live in a cleaner
London but want to keep up their own traditions.
The movie though at points is wonderfully honest…like when Akshay tells his father in law …that now that they are in London…he can’t do a thing …his own daughters complaint might land him in jail…pretty much implying that in India such complications are never an issue.
But other than that mostly its the same nationalistic triumphs and harping on India’s glorious past….and how foreigners can be never loyal and counted upon..and that love at first sight thing of Akshay in the movie sucks…and then that committed waiting….as if all Indian men would really wait for a runaway bride.
Somehow the movie reminded me of the book by Meera Syal…”Life isnt all haa ha hee hee”. rather than such movies about London or the expatriates i liked the realistic and ironic and comic potrayal of the trials , dilemmas and troubles faced by such. I guess there’s a BBC drama too on it.
The books showcases more deeply why a relationship with a foreigner or even someone from a different state or strata sometimes may really leave you regretting.
One beautiful example in the book is wherein Tania living in with a foreigner who’s quite nice and loyal but she observes how her friends husband calls her ‘Jaan’ and she misses it. For all that she has she misses the connection that word brings.
The different associations and falsities they live through.Best though i liked the way the character Tania in the book who pretty much never tries to look or be Indian in the traditional sense says……among people and places where they all try to find out about the exotic stuff and all associated with India…she says something to the effect “i don’t need to put in on or act it or learn it and prove it ….because i am the original…i am Indian”.
That is why the scope of books ever exceeds a movie but more than that these days whenever i see a movie i feel our new directors start off with a brilliant idea but don’t have the courage to follow it up and give in to the same tested formulas….hype jingoism and comedy for the sucking masses.I felt the same when i watched Honeymoon Travels. I
t was a nice story which could have been oh so much more and quite a few such movies these days which have some brilliant or honest part in them and then they get lost in the requisite ingredients of Bollywood.
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