The Mistress of Spices

All the prickly hate surrounding this film is perplexing. Aishwarya Rai fills the chapals of Tilo perfectly and Dylan McDermott is ravishing as Doug. The chemistry between Rai and McDermott is palpable.

The source material for the film is pretty thin itself. So given that Berges was able to fashion this tasty, meaty film -- that lets you feel the sizzle of the chilies or the lapping of the almond milk while providing a cute folktale in the U.S. -- is commendable.

The movie's failing attribute is how slow it is to start -- but a quirky cast and hypnotic cinematography make this a movie that's easily along the lines of The Lake House or Chocolat in the realm of accessible magical realism.

In India, Tilo (Aishwarya Rai) has the ability of foreseeing the future. When their parents are killed by bandits, she is kidnapped but escapes and is raised by the First Mother (Zohra Segal) in a sort of traditional cult of spices. She becomes the Mistress of Spices and is sent to the Spice Bazaar in San Francisco, with the mission of following three basic rules: help her clients to accomplish their desires with the spices, but never hers; never leave the store; and never be touched in the skin. When she meets the handsome American architect Doug (Dylan McDermott), she feels a great attraction and desire for him, breaking the first rule and being punished by the spices.

"The Mistress of Spices" is a predictable but pleasant film that uses the idea of movies like "Chocolate", "Woman on Top", "Como Agua Para Chocolate" blending romance with food or spice or chocolate or cookies. Therefore, the flawed story has no originality and is quite boring and messy in many moments. However, the cinematography is wonderful, with magnificent colors highlighted on DVD. Further, the gorgeous Miss World 1994 and Queen of Bollywood Aishwarya Rai makes this little film worth with her beauty and participating in most of the scenes. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Sabor da Magia" ("The Flavor of Magic")

A die-hard fan of Aishwarya, I must start out by saying that Aishwarya looks absolutely drop-dead gorgeous in the red sari. This is one of her most beautiful looks on screen ever. Mistress of Spices dishes up an interesting fare that deals with Aishwarya, a woman with an extraordinary gift that allows her to envision the problems others are going through and the ability to mix the right spices that will solve their problems. She does this by means of a Spice Bazaar store in San Francisco where customers seek her for help. It is quite interesting to see how she helps her diverse clientèle and loyal customers through the use of spices (which by the way seems very possible, as Indian herbal medicine argues that different spices have different chemicals that control our mind and body). However, being a "mistress of spices," Aishwarya is bound by certain rules, which she begins to find suppressing and enslaving once she begins to fall in love. What is interesting about this movie is that there is not much of a plot and mainly just a small store for sets. This film looks at the art of using spices to improve lives and delves into Aishwarya's internal conflict between love and duty, making this a very interesting and reinvigorating movie.

In spite of a very heavy schedule I took time off to watch this because I was curious to see how a film would handle the fantastical elements of the book.

I am sorry to say this so baldly: the film borders on the absurd in some parts and proved to be a damp squib in others despite the (ridiculous)numerous shots of bright red hot chilli peppers in almost every frame.

There was absolutely no chemistry between the two main characters,bunches of hot chilli peppers notwithstanding. I have no doubt Aishwarya has thousands of loyal fans who would defend her "acting talent" but again I failed to see any evidence of it in this movie.

That the director is a novice, a wanna be, and could do with some training is a given. He simply did not know how to handle material so rich in possibilities. He lost every opportunity in the book to make the characters come alive. Even worse, he fails to lift the movie from being a mere depiction of absurd hocus pocus to one where magical elements would seem almost natural even in the humdrum life of a Western city.

In the end, I felt impelled to laugh every time I saw Aish go up to the window to gaze out wordlessly with a bunch of red peppers hanging behind her.

Perhaps the director believed he could ride on the bandwagon of success that all Indian things seem to have currently but he seems to have miscalculated his own ability to interpret a story such as this even with wife Gurinder standing by his side.

I don't know what to say about this film. I went into it with zero expectations, apart from Aishwarya Rai to look stunning. So I was sort of pleasantly surprised. Make no mistake though, it is a poor film.

Ill keep it short because there isn't really much to say.

Story: Tilo (Aishwarya) is part of some ancient mystical cult which uses the power of spices to heal people, around the world. So she sets up shop in Oakland. She also has to relinquish any sort of personal desires, and can never leave the shop. Then she meets Doug (Dylan McDermott) and so the normal culture clash thing which pops up in every single one of Gurinder Chadha's films ensues. Blah blah blah...the end There are numerous flaws, but Ill start with the positives The Good - Aishwarya looked great. And she had a consistent accent. Performance was relatively good, given the other flaws inherent in this film - Santosh Sivan did a great job with cinematography. San Francisco looked fantastic Errm I think thats about it The Bad - The script was weak. there was no character development and it was padded out too much with contrived and unnecessary subplots. Anupam Kher was so badly wasted. I mean I think that some subplot was needed to show the way the spices work (or however you want to word it), but they really detracted form the main story, which itself wasn't up to much in the first place.

• I think the very basic concept of the film was handled poorly. the makers never seemed to know themselves whether they were making a realistic film or some sort of magical/mystical fantasy. And resultantly there was no sort of ambiance, build-up or anything to keep someone interested to the end of it.

• Absolutely no chemistry at all between Aishwarya and Dylan McDermott - On the same point, the performances were average at best. I think the fault does lie in the script and the direction as no one had any real scope for performance and they were all just basically required to look good for the camera.

• Unnecessary voice-overs, really got to me As I said, if you go in with no expectations at all, you could well enjoy it, but its still a poorly made film.

4/10