Ralph's Movie Reviews: COOKING WITH STELLA

Monday, April 12, 2010

COOKING WITH STELLA

Drama
Some dialogue in Hindi with English subtitles.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Seema Biswas: Stella Elizabeth Matthews, cook and housekeeper
Don McKellar: Michael Laffont, recent arrival to the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi
Lisa Ray: his wife Maya
Shriya Saran: Tannu, the family’s newly hired nanny
Vansh Bhardwaj: Anthony

REVIEW
This subtle social comedy with shades of Bollywood has some light moments but some serious overtones as well.

The performance by Biswas is far and away the best of the lot and that of Saran delightful. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the rest of the cast, some of whom are downright awful (see last entry above)

Some gorgeous misty (or is it just smoggy?) day-time scenes and some taken at night make New Deli look its best, lovely in fact.

There are times when things bog down a bit: I found it a tad too long.

CLASSIFICATION

P.S.
• 500 rupees is worth about $10
• In many parts of India when referring to anyone meriting respect they add the suffix “ji” as in "Please call a taxi for Gupta-ji"
• When someone asks “what is your good name?” they want to know the person’s formal or legal name as opposed to the pet name used by friends and family
• It is common practice to use the English words “uncle” and “auntie” when addressing people who are unrelated to you such as neighbours, acquaintances, even total strangers (like shopkeepers) who are significantly older than oneself.
• Diwali is a significant 5-day festival in the fall; it is also known as the Festival of Lights

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.