I saw Mira Nair's 'Monsoon Wedding' a couple of days ago, and liked it quite a lot.
Naseerudin Shah hold the movie together, superbly playing an upper-middle-class Punjabi man trying to tread water and put his family's best foot forward through an expensive, instantly recognizable, Delhi wedding.
Om Puri has garnered all the international glory these past few years, but Shah is a very good actor who only needs a couple more such roles to carve out his own richly-deserved space abroad.
There are lots of bits of this movie that strike home to me, incisive looks at various aspects of a post-liberalization, fluid Indian society. One major aspect of the movie is the sweet developing romance between the tribal-Christian Bihari maid and the "event-planner" budding entrepreneur. Treated in a slightly slapstick manner, it's the best part of the movie all the way through.
The real bonus is the unadulterated Punjabi/Hindi dialogue, coarse in parts, high-flying in others. It gives the movie a very real texture even as the narrative sometimes skips and starts.
You all are not slightly nostalgic for an Indian society that feels like home. Still, I think Monsoon Wedding is worth recommending to everyone.
