Bollywood/Hollywood (2002)
Rahul Seth is a dashing young millionaire who believes he is "western" enough to rebel against his mother and grandmother. They are not too keen about his Caucasian girlfriend Kimberly who, to make matters worse, is a pop star. Before you can say "karmic intervention," Kimberly dies in a freak accident and Rahul is devastated. Instead of allowing him to mourn in peace, Rahul's mother sees the opportunity she's been waiting for. She threatens to call off his sister's wedding unless he finds himself a "nice Indian girl." Rahul enlists the services of Sue, a fiercely independent escort whom he believes to be Hispanic, and therefore not "married" to the conventions taught to young Indian women. With a wink in her eye, Sue accepts the deal to pose as his Indian bride-to-be. She needs the money and having never been a fan of the typical Indian male, she feels her heart is safe. The charade begins....
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I love this movie so much
Please don't spend money on this.
Don't listen to the negative reviews
Absolutely the worst movie.
About an hour into "Bollywood/Hollywood," Rahul (Rahul Khanna) tells Sue (Lisa Ray), "You're so unpredictable." Really? Because there's nothing she does in the film, and nothing in writer-director Deepa Mehta's script, that's even remotely unpredictable. Sue's about as unpredictable as the sunrise.The premise: Forced to find a nice Indian bride before his sister gets married, westernized Rahul Seth meets Sue in a bar. And in a deal stolen right out of "Pretty Woman" (1990), she agrees to pose as his bride in order to satisfy his mother.Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what will happen.It's obvious Mehta set out to make a lighthearted parody of romantic comedies and meld the genre into the suddenly popular Bollywood movies. I enjoy good Bollywood films. But in trying to find the best of both worlds, Mehta falls horribly short.The romantic-comedy aspect of the story doesn't work because the characters aren't all that interesting. The outcome's a foregone conclusion and both Khanna and Ray have such poorly defined characters that, although they look nice, there's nothing beneath the surface. Ray has screen presence to spare. But Mehta needed to give the poor girl a stronger role.The film's Bollywood angle does worse. What's fun about good Bollywood movies is that their songs are peppy and the song-and-dance sequences are fun to watch. Here, there's just one song-and-dance number - Sue's routine - that comes close to emulating a Bollywood number. The rest are unimaginative and completely forgettable.Mehta tries to gently poke fun of and respect Bollywood films and Indian culture. Unfortunately, she does a lousy job straddling that fine line. Subplots and characters, including a bit about men in drag and a grandmother who quotes Shakespeare, make no sense and one female character keeps popping up in various scenes repeating the same line of dialogue: "What a bunch of losers." Why? Mehta also tries to capture the Bollywood essence with some ridiculous supertitles, including one during a kiss that says, "Kiss to end all kisses. No debate." It's a horrid, desperate attempt at humor, trying to force laughs out of us because nothing in her story makes us chuckle.Intermingling western and eastern genres could have made for a fun, exotic, unpredictable film. But Mehta doesn't seem to quite know what she's doing. I'm certain the initial idea sounded terrific and the film likely looked good on paper. But it suffers when translated on to the screen."Bollywood/Hollywood" is the kind of film that makes "The Guru" (2002) seem like a masterpiece.
When I saw the first scenes of this movie, I quickly knew there was something nice going to happen, although I also knew that my sudden interest was not for what was going to happen, but for how it was going to happen. Maybe that's why for most of us moviegoers that do know about Indian movies, the 'how' was full of a smooth and unusual self laughing, telling by the performance of the main actresses performing the mother and the grandma (which have based their careers in the Indian way of rising soap operas to the category of mainstream movies), to whom you would never believe they were also capable to make you laugh by portraying two funny old ladies anxious to get this Ross-like grown kid married. You have to like Indian music to enjoy it as a musical, so that doesn't count too much. But one of the things that makes it universal is the way it drives us to think about one of the dilemmas in modern couples when they face marriage. What are we after when we look for a lifetime partner?: From a guy perspective, should we accept the randomly crazy, next-door, average Rachael we all come up to get to know some time?, or should we look for the trust and confidence generally associated to old values? In that sense the movie does succeed at providing funny (and musical)moments, beauty, and a happy ending to our own thoughts. I strongly disagree to those who qualify it as a bad movie. Hey, would Casablanca ever have a chance to be a blockbuster nowadays? No way. You have to know about movies to fully enjoy it in the 21st century. With Bollywood/Hollywood it happens exactly the same. You would need to have seen some previous Indian productions to understand the keys and the reflections inside. Otherwise you'll focus only on technical details like the editing or the story timing, which will probably bias your judge unfairly.
If you like Lisa Ray and Rahul Khanna, this film is totally for you. I first saw Rahul Khann doing VJ work for AVS and I saw him in "Earth" with Aamir Khan and was totally blown away by his performance. When I first heard about B/H I thought it was going to be completely stupid and senseless, but, even though it can be called a spoof of Indian cinema, it is any but the aboved mentioned. It was a nice light laugh, especially with the Shakespeare-rattling grandmother called the first girlfriend a "white whore" and always referring to the "levitating accident". I couldn't stop laughing. Some of the characters were extremely stereotypical, but that's okay, because it only adds to the films appeal and a light hearted refreshing approach to an east-west fusion film. This is definitely much better than "American Chai" and merits up there with the likes of "Bend it Like Beckham". For another great Lisa Ray film, definitely check out "Kasoor", she'll blow you away. After seeing a film like "Raaz", it really makes you think that Bipsha Basu's performance was somehow based or gathered closely from Lisa's in "Kasoor". A definite step into dramatic/crime Indian cinema. Bollywood/Hollywood is a great film, and you should check out the films from the director too, "Earth", "Water" and "Fire."
Bollywood/Hollywood is a parody of Bollywood musicals, which are a Bengali version of the old Hollywood musicals. Therefore, everything is intended to be either stereotypical, zany, melodramatic or trite etc. One must be prepared to accept the unlikely and even the outright contradictory, when watching parodies. The film's comedy aspect may at times seem obvious but is still clever and subtle in it own way. The director, Deepa Mehta, made this film in the wake of being thrown out of India because the Indian government felt that they could not guarantee the safety of her or her crew because of the rioting of Hindu fundamentalists inspired by her two great but controversial (in India), dramatic films, 'Fire' and 'Earth'. This zany film may have been a reaction to the reception, in India, of her heavy dramas.