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Memorable, crazy movie

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I am not a very pised or very frustrated dude. I have seen lot of great acting in my life. Its okay some people are not great actors its just that way and some are. Example Robert De Niro, Paul Newman, Madhuri Dixit (Indian), Tabu (Indian). Aishwarya is no where closer. She is nothing but a pretty face and not just that she is damn arrogant. This works in India because for folks in India seeing somebody so beautiful is very rare. But at an international level I don't think she has the right material. Even in Bollywood, there are better actresses. She's a pretty face that sells tickets and people have taken her too far for what she's worth. Sorry Aishwarya and Aishwarya fans, I don't intend to be harsh or rude but this reality.Indian.

Let's begin with...the good things, shall we? The cinematography, art direction... it's OK. Visually, I think this movie has succeeded in creating a modern showing and respect for traditions. Beautifully done there, I promise you that your eyes will have a feast on all the spices. That's about all I can say. The characters are confusing, questionable, unrealistic... The whole storyline and concept is magical, mystical and mysterious though it succeeded in being unconvincing. I mean, my favorite movies are Memoirs of a Geisha and Big Fish; all these stories have beautiful story lines, images, fantasies etc. "Mistress of Spices" failed right from the beginning. Overflooded with voice overs, over explained and overdescripted with unnecessary dialogue. I thought it killed the beautiful images seen on screen. Wise words and inspiring lines were thrown casually at inappropriate times. Everything was predictable, foolish and very flat. I feel so terrible for every potentially-good movie I see that turns out to be a flop.

This is such a boring movie. Rai is basically imprisoned in the spice shop talking to spices in her head. All the exposition is either confusing flashbacks, or endless narrative from Rai. Must be extremely cheap to make a movie when all you have is one actor on one set endlessly narrating the story in her head. The most annoying part is probably some drummy Indian beat that plays endlessly every time McDermontt's character is around in combination with a close up chili peppers. It's the spices talking to Rai's character warning her he's trouble. Apparently the spices are some form of deities that control the fate of Rai's character. If she breaks the rules things happen. Horrible, horrible movie that only gets worse if you make it to the ending.

Magical realism requires a deft directorial hand and a great screenplay that can present you with the absurd but still make you believe it. The Mistress of Spices had neither.First of all, the lead performances were OK. In Aishwarya's case I expected much worse, based on what I'd seen from her past roles. Here she played a woman reluctant to embrace love and it turned out believable. Dylan, already known to be a competent actor, delivered the occasional smoldering look necessary to convey "I'm falling in love."It was the poor treatment of the supporting characters that made this movie almost atrocious. The good-natured cab-driver's first scene seemed completely unbelievable because of the bad acting. The young Sikh teenager's transformation from dutiful son to gold-chained gangbanger was unintentionally hilarious, calling on caricatures rather than character development. And whoever fixed his turban needs to be fired. The grandfather's needling concern for his granddaughter's love life reeked of "Bend it Like Beckham" with the over-the-top parental figures nagging their children into the arms of non-Indians. The problem is, that while all these undeveloped 2-D characters would have been great in BILB, they ruined the atmosphere that the audience needed to believe in Tilo's magic. If you aren't grounded in the reality of the movie's world, then the "magic" part isn't special. The use of voice-over for Tilo's thoughts may have been necessary so that the audience could know about the different spices, but it just did not feel right. It indicated that the screenwriter never completely transcribed the story for the big screen. Inner voice works for books. Not as much for movies. The rules that Tilo lived by also came across as hokey and impractical for a store-owner in California. The fact that none of her customers, even traditional Indians, knew of her true nature kept the stakes low. At the very least, if there were people helping her stay inside the store and truly appreciative of her mystical skills (or truly dependent on them) then her conflict would have made some kind of sense.Now to SPOILERS: The blazing speed of the relationship fixes is mind-boggling. Tilo meets Haroun's neighbor, a woman who has barely spoken to Haroun. Pretty much the next day, Tilo is handing Haroun a wedding gift. Give it a little time please? The Sikh gangbanger suddenly agrees to take martial arts lessons rather than fire off that gun with that DANGEROUS GANG he just joined yesterday. Roundhouse kicks don't stop bullets! Doug's girlfriend suddenly shows up in Tilo's Indian spice store so she can find out how to cook for him. Then when she finds out that Doug loves someone else, she's just happy for him?They put way too much makeup on Aishwarya, who was meant to be playing the role of an unassuming natural beauty who supposedly couldn't leave her store or have romance. Tone it down a little bit so that when you finally have that big makeover scene, there's a real reason to be impressed! Strangest of all was Doug's back story about his estranged mother. It was so completely irrelevant. With such mystical tension and drama leading up to his deep dark secret, I am still left wondering :So your great grandpa gave you a magic feather...and???But the colors were pretty.