Monsoon Wedding
Autumn 2002 Main series
Sunday, September 22, 2002 at 4:00pm
Sunday, September 22, 2002 at 7:00pm
Monday, September 23, 2002 at 7:00pm
Empire Theatres, New Minas, NS
Directed by
Starring
Rated 14A ·
1h 59m
India
English, Punjabi, and Hindi
Internationally acclaimed director Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay, Kama Sutra) returns to her roots in the city of Delhi — where djinns and dotcoms live in perfect harmony — to give us the effervescent, trilingual, hilarious Monsoon Wedding. New Delhi’s all-engulfing Punjabi culture forms the backdrop for an upper-middle class wedding; the ceremony attracts five strands of the family from all over the world. Each group, equipped with its own personal brand of social mores, pours in from Toronto, Houston, California’s Silicon Valley, Australia and Dubai to join the festivities. For the five days and nights leading up to the marriage, the reunited clan’s idiosyncrasies clash, giving the whole proceedings the feel of a big, rambunctious circus. Upon arrival, cracks quickly emerge in the family’s happy facade as illicit trysts, betrayals and bitter feuds form and interweave sub-plots with hidden agendas galore. The young bride is trying to maintain an affair with her married boss, her parents don’t get along, the elderly patriarch has an unnatural fondness for the bride’s young cousin and even the caterer-turned-events manager gets into the act, falling hopelessly in love with a fiesty, ambitious maid. Throughout the proceedings, Monsoon Wedding navigates the waters of turbulent love across boundaries of class, continent and morality and, when the voyage is complete and each frailty exposed, the strength of the family weathers the storm and is lovingly affirmed. Alive with much food, drink, elaborately choreographed dance and song, Monsoon Wedding features a big, talented ensemble cast and spoofy, madcap comedy infused with tremendous colour, energy and élan. Nair’s unique take on the Hindi filmy shaadi genre won Best Picture at the 2001 Venice International Film Festival and was a runner-up for the AGF People’s Choice Award® at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival.
“Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding is one of those joyous films that leaps over national boundaries and celebrates universal human nature. A delightful romantic comedy.” – Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times
“Splashy, noisy, and downright fun. An unrepentingly cross-cultural audience-pleaser.” – Variety
“Monsoon Wedding sent my spirits soaring out of the theatre.” – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly