The Mistress of Spices

It's difficult for any one who has a good appreciation for culinary art not to be attracted to this spicy shop, spacious, tastefully appointed, with thousands of colourful spices displayed in so many different interesting fashions. A sheer joy for the eyes.

So is Aishwaryi Rai, Miss World of 1994, who graces the screen with wide-eyed innocence through most of the movie and appears in the last scene radiating with alluring glamour in a bright red evening gown, with her hair finally let down, falling like graceful ripples to her shoulder.

Even accepting the premise of a fairy tale, it's hard to believe how Tilo (Rai) can run her spice shop all by herself without EVER leaving it, the first of three conditions for having her power bestowed by "the spices". The second is easier to abide by if one is careful, not to touch the skin of any human being. The third is not to use the power to benefit herself. This "power" is a vague ability to see other people's past and sometimes future and to use spices to help them.

The romance with dashing architect Doug (Dylan McDermott) is appropriately low-key, and hence believable. Subplots include Tilo's various customers, with their assortment of problems, many caused by cultural clashes in southern California.

All told, this is a delightful little fairy tale which is particularly pleasant visually. I can't help but think that it should also come with these new gimmicks, as a movie with smells. This is the perfect movie for it.

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.

I saw this film at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival.

Mistress of Spices is based on the novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and is the directorial debut for Paul Mayeda Berges. Berges has worked previously with his wife, Gurinder Chadha, on a number of films including Bend it Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice. Chadha co-wrote the screenplay here with her husband.

The movie follows Tilo, played by Aishwarya Rai, who is a member of an old, mystical cult that worships spice in all its forms. She is sent to Oakland to open a shop and help people using the mysterious powers of the spices. Tilo, who also has the power to see visions of the future, soon ends up helping a whole coterie of characters: a man (Anupam Kher) who is distressed over his granddaughter (Padma Lakshmi), a woman who has grown up in America and adopted western ways, much to his dismay; Jagjit (Sonny Gill Dulay), a teenager who is having trouble with the kids at school; Haroun (Nitin Chandra Ganatra), a cab driver that has a cloudy future; Kwesi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a man trying to win the heart of a woman.

But to be successful, Tilo must follow three rules: one, she must never leave the store; two, she must never touch the skin of another person; three, she can never use the spices for her own gain. One day a man (Dylan McDermott) falls off his motorcycle outside her store and they are both instantly drawn to one another, challenging Tilo's devotion to her cause and threatening her control over the spices.

This is a nice, light film, reminiscent in many ways of Chocolat, with Aishwarya Rai in the Juliette Binoche role. Rai is luminous on screen, and the chemistry between her and Dylan McDermott is good. I didn't think the voice-over narration of Rai's character's inner thoughts was entirely successful, although I can't see how else you could really do it; funny enough, the voice-overs reminded me of another spice-related movie, David Lynch's Dune. The movie explores a bit of the mixing between east and west and the conflict between old and new, but not quite as successfully as some of Berges' and Chadha's other films, but that is probably due more to the limitations of creating an adaptation.

THE MISTRESS OF SPICES has some of the most beautiful use of color and texture in the form a magical Spice Bazaar that has graced a DVD. It also has as its protagonist the very beautiful Aishwarya Rai and the love interest of the always-reliable Dylan McDermott. The story was created and directed by Paul Mayeda Berges (with help from Gurinder Chada) who has given us such fine films as "Paris, je t'aime', 'Bride & Prejudice' and 'Bend It Like Beckham'. So the question arises as to why this film just doesn't quite make it: the reason may be the tough marriage of fantasy with reality, assigning more importance to dialog between the Mistress and the spices than to the development of storyline.

Tilo (the ravishingly beautiful Aishwarya Rai) was taken in as a child by a spiritually inclined First Mother (Zohra Sehgal) who trains young girls the mysteries of spices - their magic, their meaning and their rigid life style imposed on the developing Mistresses. Those who gain the secrets of the spices are sent into the world, warned never to use the magic for them selves, never to touch human skin, and never to leave the shops where their spices are shared to help mankind. Tilo moves to the Bay Area and does good deeds for her customers until she meets Doug (Dylan McDermott) who needs her care after a motorcycle accident. They touch, their eyes speak of mutual desire and Tilo is thrown into conflict of being a mistress of spices or of having a love life. How situations and destiny work through the story is the meager line of the tale, the majority of the script is Tilo communicating with her spices!

The cast contains some fine character actors such as Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Caroline Chikezie, Anupam Kher, and of course Zohra Sehgal. And there is enough statement about immigrant status in America to keep the story topical. THE MISTRESS OF SPICES entertains and that is a pleasure. Just don't expect a film on the level of director Paul Mayeda Berges' other works. Grady Harp

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.