It’s A Wonderful Afterlife

Rating: **

Poor Jane Austen has a lot to answer for. ‘Pride and Prejudice’ laid the template of anxious mothers whose only aim in this life is to get their daughters a perfect match. Gurinder Chadha has been replaying the theme,sometimes directly,sometimes not so,in her movies which mix Cockney manners,’desi’ mores,and cultural singularities,sometimes with great success,sometimes not so. ‘It’s A Wonderful Afterlife’ falls firmly in the latter category.

Mrs Sethi ( Azmi) dotes on her homely,portly daughter ( Notay),who gobbles ‘laddoos’ and ‘jalebis’ when she is not being rejected by nasty match-making ladies. Each refusal stabs the mother in the heart,and she,in turn,turns into a serial killer. With this early revelation,the teeny bit of suspense that buoys the film gives way to a cheerless story about a bunch of white-faced,badly made-up ghosts,a despairing mother and an equally despairing daughter.

The sympathetic but sharp writing that made ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ such an acutely-observed delight goes missing as Chaddha sets about piling unappetizing scenes involving projectiles masquerading as food ( don’t be surprised if you don’t feel like putting a morsel in your mouth after the film) and unfunny apparitions. One of them ( Bhaskar) has gory intestines spilling out of his stomach,which move and gurgle every time he speaks ; another has a skewer of ‘kebabs’ coming out of her head. You get the picture.

Some relief is afforded by ‘Heroes ‘ star Sendhil Ramamurthy showing up to romance Notay. But that begs the question : if a guy as dishy as that can see something in our plump plain jane,were the others who nixed her, plain blind? Or batty?

These are inconsistencies Chadhha refuses to address in her lax script. She is also guilty of turning Azmi,who gave us a great NRI turn in ‘ Loins Of Punjab’,into more of a frump than she deserves,and Notay into a more mousey miss than she needs to be. And the friend ( Hawkins) who’s returned from an Indian ashram channeling her inner medium in a very ‘Carrie’ like fashion,works too hard at being ditsy.

‘It’s A Wonderful Afterlife’ is all right for a couple of smiles. The rest is an effort.