Standard hollywood formula
Ram | Berkeley, CA United States | 10/22/2009
(2 out of 5 stars)
"If you enjoy the standard Hollywood formula, this movie is certainly for you. Don't expect any enlightenment on indian culture or the ways of that country. The Hollywood view, presented in this movie, is that most indians are sort of primitive call center operators, whose training is to learn the types of burgers sold in the US... Of course, the standard indian is a "marry-arranged-wife-at-home-cow-worshiper", and the american character is a cute man with a heart, who grows up a bit... Americans are the usual free spirited, but brash and a bit immature types, who provide love to the beautiful rebel foreigner, and in exchange mature a bit.
The only danger about watching this movie is sleeping through it, given the number of cliches and beaten up dialogues. Anyway, this passable romantic comedy shouldn't be taken as a cross cultural movie. A more interesting and fun cross-cultural movie, on a very very similar theme, is Outsourced.
PS: Marriage and Hollywood's view of love are completely overrated. It usually leads to 58% divorce rate, and 95% alcohol drinking rate. Interestingly, indians have a much kinder view of the USA, and their movies typically portray americans as mostly what we present ourselves to be... Maybe it is a vestige of colonization in the mind of that country. Someday, someone will make a movie about the gentries (rich and powerful) in the USA, who still have arranged marriages and mangled fortunes. And funny enough, many of these marriages last much longer than the ones in hollywood..."