Jamie passion and passionfruit!

Not entirely sure what to make of this.  Mira Nair takes a best seller and a topic close to her own experience to recount the story of an Indian couple migrants to the US and the subsequent relationship with their children born and bred in the US who have a foot in each camp.  The action takes place over 25 years and we see how the son, in particular first rejects, then obsessively accepts his heritage then falls somewhere in the middle.  We also see the process of the wife as she first has to survive in a foreign world, constantly missing Calcutta and then finally can come to terms with her split life.  There are many fine points in the film.  The photography of Frederick Elmes is excellent, there is an economy in many scenes that spells out points effortlessly, the acting by the three leads is also very good, Irffan Khan, the father, Kal Penn, the son and Tabu, the mother who is the backbone of the movie. 

The negative side of the ledger is that at times the film seems to drag and be bogged down by the chronological order of the novel and maybe the director almost wants to put too much in.  A sensitive piece of art and worth a watch but for my money Nair has still yet to produce the top film she has always promised.

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