Foreign Body

It's a charming and funny film whose humor also lampoons class distinctions and cross-cultural differences in a very believable manner. The casting is just perfect. If you can find it, rent it or, better yet, buy it: it's a keeper.

This movie is hilarious and heart-warming. It is a great thing to turn the channel on the cable box which has all too many worthless t.v.-movies on it and come across a movie that is so cute that you can't stop watching it. This great movie is something rare. A movie with a cute story that doesn't take too much thinking to love it.

Or: how to succeed in business without really trying.

This modest comedy makes it look easy, showing an overeager, undersexed immigrant, newly arrived in London from his native Calcutta, impersonating a physician at a roadside accident and then carrying the charade to enormous success after setting up an exclusive Harley Street practice, despite having an only rudimentary knowledge of medicine. It proved to be the feature swan song for director Ronald Neame, a fixture in British Cinema since he first worked alongside Alred Hitchcock way back in 1929

The film, like its protagonist, is amiable and ingratiating: a long, lazy social comedy that never overextends its satirical reach.

I first saw this film about 10 years ago, at a friend's house.

Then I spent five years trying to find a copy for myself. I am happy to have one, finally! This is a very funny and quirky film, about a poor East Indian man who wants to become a doctor so badly that he sets up a practice in England under false pretenses. He becomes a favorite doctor of all the rich well to do types in London, and of course many misadventures follow. The best scenes are the ones with Nora Plumb. (NP- Not Permitted?) A fun movie, find a copy and rent it tonight!

***

I enjoy the relationship between Ram and his Uncle I.Q. Uncle is amazing, as a hard worker, dreamer, philosopher and (in this case) schemer for his nephew.

Ram gets to England, and gets a government job on a bus. One day, a woman is unconscious. Ram finds her fascinating. He announces himself as a doctor. Suddenly, everyone around him gives him respect, and does whatever he asks. The woman revives, and wants to re-pay the doctor's kindness.

Ram's Uncle comes up with a brainstorm: become a doctor (who pretty much just acts like a chiropractor, with a good bed-side manner). The story zooms along.

Ram is well-cast, as well as his girlfriend and her mother. Most of the time, the movie goes along slowly, but it is surprisingly tense also. I have watched this movie several times over the last 15 years, and will see it a few more times in the future.