Review of Monsoon Wedding (2001) by Arthy A — 16 Nov 2011

Waterproofing Should Always Be Included.

By and large, I think arranged marriages are a horrible idea. They're a slightly better idea if you at least live in the same town, and for preference house, with the person doing the arranging. I suspect, however, that the expectations of an arranged marriage are different. I suspect that you are not likely to go into one thinking that it will be a Romance For the Ages. I'm wondering how much the taboo against divorce factors in, come to that. If people who don't think they're able to divorce without incurring social penalties put up with a lot more than people for whom divorce is always an option. Now, I know that Graham is not who my mother would choose for me, if I gave Mom the right to choose who I would marry. And I treasure the fact that I don't at all have to worry about it. However, I don't know if I would feel differently if I had so badly mishandled my own personal life. It's worth considering.

You see, Aditi Verma (Vasundhara Das) has, for some time now, been in a relationship with Vikram Mehta (Sameer Arya), a married man. And she's just tired of the whole thing, so what she's going to do now is let her parents arrange a marriage for her to the son of their old childhood friends, Hemant Rai (Parvin Dabas), who also has the added advantage of living in America, far away from the problems she's made for herself. But of course, no wedding plans ever go smoothly. It seems like half the members in the big Indian families are busy with their own subplots. Her father, Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah), can't really afford for the wedding to be as elaborate as he's planning, and he's deeply upset that his son, Varun (Ishaan Nair), is not as masculine as he'd like and is planning to be a chef. His niece, Ria (Shefalie Shetty), was molested as a child by his sister's husband, Tej Puri (Rajat Kapoor), who is now eyeing young Aliyah (Kemaya Kidwai). And the wedding planner, P. K. Dubey (Vijay Raaz), is in love with the maid, Alice (Tillotama Shome).

Once again, we're looking at a battle between the Western and the traditional. The girls of the family are growing fond of the idea of independence. They like the idea that they don't have to do what their families want. Ria is even considering going off to the US to study writing. She is also willing to defy the whole family if that's what it takes to protect Aliyah. And, of course, the movie wouldn't be happening at all if Aditi had not fallen in love with a married man. Ayesha (Neha Dubey) has chosen who she will marry, and it doesn't much matter what anyone else has to say on the subject. And indeed, it's as much a battle between the modern and the traditional, given that women's independence is very recent even in the West. The women don't want to live the same lives their ancestresses did, even though Aditi has accepted the traditional choice of an arranged marriage. She still reserves the right to call it off.

This is also just a beautiful film. Unlike a Western film about a wedding, there is a great deal more open joy, I think. The night before the wedding, there is a big party for everyone concerned. There isn't separating into a bridal shower and a bachelor party, though the women do have a private party to start the process of beautifying the bride. Instead, the families get together and sing and dance, and the dancing isn't limited to traditional music. The night of the wedding itself, they dance to techno. All of them, from the children to the grandmothers. The one who has been living in Melbourne, Rahul (Randeep Hooda), says he cannot dance to Indian music, but when it looks as though someone else is courting Ayesha, he tries. And at the end, they even welcome P. K. and Alice into their midst, because they are celebrating as well. Even the arranged marriage is, at heart, about family; various mothers and grandmothers insist that their descendants provide them with even more sons for the family.

In the end, everyone concerned really does want what's best for everyone else--except the odious Vikram, who very nearly leaves Aditi to get raped by a couple of cops. (One wonders how he explained the evening's events to his wife, all things considered.) Unfortunately, what's best isn't always easy to determine. As it turns out, P. K. is Brahmin (I don't know how the people who mention this on the IMDB message boards know this), and so his mother (Sharda Desoares) has even more reason to want grandsons. But she also genuinely seems to want her son to be happy. It's just that she thinks he needs a wife and family to be truly happy. It's probably also true that she's not a hundred percent certain that her son should be spending his days arranging weddings for people of lower castes than they. Probably it's only her certainty that her son should have his own sons that will let her resign herself to the fact that he's marrying a maid.