The Mistress of Spices (film)
| The Mistress of Spices | |
|---|---|
Movie poster
|
|
| Directed by | Paul Mayeda Berges |
| Written by |
Gurinder Chadha Paul Mayeda Berges Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni |
| Starring |
Aishwarya Rai Dylan McDermott Ayesha Dharker |
| Cinematography | Santosh Sivan |
| Edited by | Alex Rodríguez |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
96 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | English Hindi |
| Box office | $1,337,846 |
The Mistress of Spices is a 2005 film by Paul Mayeda Berges, with a screenplay by Gurinder Chadha and Berges. It is based upon the novel Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The film stars Aishwarya Rai. The soundtrack was created by Craig Pruess, who also contributed to the Bend It Like Beckham soundtrack.
Tilo (Aishwarya Rai), an immigrant from India, is a shopkeeper, an unusually strong clairvoyant, and a chosen Mistress of Spices. The Spices she gives to her customers help them to satisfy their certain needs and desires, such as "sandalwood to dispel painful memories; black cumin seed to protect against evil eye."
As a young girl, Tilo was initiated as one of several young Mistresses of Spices by the First Mother (Zohra Sehgal), who warns the girls about certain rules they must follow, or face dire consequences. They are instructed never to leave their respective stores all around the world, physically touch the skin of the people they meet, or use the great and incomprehensible strength and power of the Spices to their own ends.
Tilo ends up in the San Francisco Bay Area in a store called "Spice Bazaar". Tilo's customers include Haroun, a cab driver (Nitin Ganatra), a grandfather (Anupam Kher) dealing with an American-born granddaughter Geeta (Padma Lakshmi), Kwesi, a man trying to impress his girlfriend (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Jagjit, a teenager trying to fit in at school (Sonny Gill Dulay).
Her life takes a turn one day, when a young architect named Doug (Dylan McDermott) crashes his motorcycle outside her store. Tilo tends to his injuries while trying to ignore their mutual romantic attraction. Her life changes when he touches her and they begin to fall in love.
But the Spices are suddenly angry and jealous, and things soon start to go sour in her relationships with her other customers. Haroun gets in an accident, Geeta's family situation does not improve, Jagjit falls in with the wrong crowd at school, and Kwesi's girlfriend breaks up with him. Doug comes to meet her that night and sadly tells her that his Native American-born mother had died.
...
Wikipedia