Monsoon Wedding

A film about the preparations for a wedding in Delhi. The Verma family is arranging a marriage for their daughter Aditi. The groom lives in America, relatives are arriving from all over the world, and the monsoon is about to break. The film runs five lines at once. Aditi has a relationship she needs to close before the wedding. The father is struggling with the cost. Dubey, the wedding planner, is drawn to Alice, one of the household staff, and that line is the sweetest part of the film. And there is something inside the family that has gone unspoken for years; it surfaces in the middle and changes the register completely. The film's strength is that it can carry the crowd. There are dozens of characters and none is decoration. It was shot very quickly, on a small budget, with handheld cameras; the yellow marquee, the flowers and the use of colour became its visual signature. Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shah and Vasundhara Das are in the cast. Mira Nair directed. The film won the Golden Lion in Venice. A warm and well-built production for anyone who likes family stories and Indian cinema. For a viewer expecting a light wedding comedy, the film enters serious territory in the middle and does not brush past it.