Splashy, noisy and downright fun, "Monsoon Wedding" is an unrepentantly cross-cultural audience-pleaser from Indian director Mira Nair, whose films from "Salaam Bombay!" to "Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love" have forged a distinctive path on the popular, gaudy edges of art cinema exotica. Here Nair weds the colorful, musical, dramatic style of India's Bollywood filmmaking with a skilful Altman-like interweaving of five love stories during the preparations for a big Punjabi marriage in New Delhi.

Sabrina Dhawan's sprightly script continually winks at global dot-com culture where English is king, followed by sex and shopping. A farcical TV talkshow introduces contemporary New Delhi and sets the film's bright,TV-ish tone. Next we meet the middle-class Verma family, headed by Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah), the golf-playing, cash flow-challenged father of the bride. In agreement with his attractive wife Pimmi (Lillete Dubey), he plans to spare no expense for the arranged marriage of their only daughter Aditi (played by wide-eyed pop star Vasundhara Das) to a young Indian engineer from Houston (Parvin Dabas).

As the relatives and in-laws begin to pour in, speaking English, Hindi and Punjabi, a chaotic, rather fascinating comedy of manners unfolds.

Overseeing the lavish celebration is P.K. Dubey (Vijay Raaz) an upwardly mobile tent and catering contractor and the film's most original comic character. His bachelor existence collapses when he falls head over heels for the family's innocent young maid Alice.

Surprisingly for Western audiences, this traditional family is permeated by a thoroughly modern morality. Aditi has a last fling with her married lover, a TV host. Meanwhile, her sexy cousin Ayesha (Neha Dubey) comes on blatantly to good-looking Rahul (Randeep Hooda), just in from Australia; and Lalit fears that his teenage son, who likes to dance and cook, is gay.

At the height of festivities, as the festooned groom arrives on horseback under the pouring monsoon rain (of course) to meet his sumptuously-dressed bride, Nair intercuts an over-the-top lyrical scene of P.K. Dubey declaring his love to the maid on a fairy tale bridge, amid a rain of marigolds. This exhilarating double-climax is the best illustration of the film's gleeful use of Bollywood kitsch to gussy up familiar Western comedy.

Cinematographer Decian Quinn's even lighting and highly mobile hand-held camera enter wholeheartedly into film's frothy spirit, while the musical score by Mychael Danna, who has worked extensively with Atom Egoyan and Ang Lee, imitates Bollywood's song and dance mania with traditional love songs, Indian pop, iazz and folk music. Wedding costumes by Arjun Bhasin are a delight.

Deborah Young, VARIETY (abridged)

Splashy, noisy and downright fun, "Monsoon Wedding" is an unrepentantly cross-cultural audience-pleaser from Indian director Mira Nair, whose films from "Salaam Bombay!" to "Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love" have forged a distinctive path on the popular, gaudy edges of art cinema exotica. Here Nair weds the colorful, musical, dramatic style of India's Bollywood filmmaking with a skilful Altman-like interweaving of five love stories during the preparations for a big Punjabi marriage in New Delhi.

Sabrina Dhawan's sprightly script continually winks at global dot-com culture where English is king, followed by sex and shopping. A farcical TV talkshow introduces contemporary New Delhi and sets the film's bright,TV-ish tone. Next we meet the middle-class Verma family, headed by Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah), the golf-playing, cash flow-challenged father of the bride. In agreement with his attractive wife Pimmi (Lillete Dubey), he plans to spare no expense for the arranged marriage of their only daughter Aditi (played by wide-eyed pop star Vasundhara Das) to a young Indian engineer from Houston (Parvin Dabas).

As the relatives and in-laws begin to pour in, speaking English, Hindi and Punjabi, a chaotic, rather fascinating comedy of manners unfolds.

Overseeing the lavish celebration is P.K. Dubey (Vijay Raaz) an upwardly mobile tent and catering contractor and the film's most original comic character. His bachelor existence collapses when he falls head over heels for the family's innocent young maid Alice.

Surprisingly for Western audiences, this traditional family is permeated by a thoroughly modern morality. Aditi has a last fling with her married lover, a TV host. Meanwhile, her sexy cousin Ayesha (Neha Dubey) comes on blatantly to good-looking Rahul (Randeep Hooda), just in from Australia; and Lalit fears that his teenage son, who likes to dance and cook, is gay.

At the height of festivities, as the festooned groom arrives on horseback under the pouring monsoon rain (of course) to meet his sumptuously-dressed bride, Nair intercuts an over-the-top lyrical scene of P.K. Dubey declaring his love to the maid on a fairy tale bridge, amid a rain of marigolds. This exhilarating double-climax is the best illustration of the film's gleeful use of Bollywood kitsch to gussy up familiar Western comedy.

Cinematographer Decian Quinn's even lighting and highly mobile hand-held camera enter wholeheartedly into film's frothy spirit, while the musical score by Mychael Danna, who has worked extensively with Atom Egoyan and Ang Lee, imitates Bollywood's song and dance mania with traditional love songs, Indian pop, iazz and folk music. Wedding costumes by Arjun Bhasin are a delight.

Deborah Young, VARIETY (abridged)

MONSOON WEDDING

Culture-clash love stories are the specially of Indian director Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala). In Monsoon Wedding, the many intersecting characters may all be Indian, meeting in modern day New Delhi, yet they are each navigating their own new paths between east and west.

The well-to-do Verma family is preparing for the wedding of their only daughter, the beautiful green-eyed Aditi (Vasundhara Das). She's agreed to an arranged marriage with a boy who is now based in America. She's getting over a passionate affair with a married man, and wants to start a new virtuous life. Relatives from around the world congregate for the noisy and extensive celebrations. The garden is turned into a marigold-strewn marquis, romances and enmities flare up, and the monsoon rains threaten to pour down. Hand-held camera-work adds to the mood of lively confusion.

Meanwhile, in a delightful sub-plot, the stringy, hyperactive wedding coordinator finds himself swooning and love-sick over the family's pretty young maid. Their romance is a sweet and funny counterpoint to the rest of the action. The winner of this year's Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, Monsoon Wedding is loud, vibrant and utterly engaging. The soundtrack overflows with a hypnotic mix of traditional and modern Indian dance music.

A boutique cinema crowd-pleaser.

Rochelle Siemienowicz