Leela, the latest addition to the NRI film collection, was written by Somnath Sen and beats to the death the theme of Second-generation Indians facing cultural identity dilemmas, on the lines of ’ABCD’ and ’American Desi.’
Krishna, who of course likes to be called Kris, is this short, boyish-looking thing who is going off to college and sees himself as part of the ’gang’, his tight-knit group of Caucasian friends. His father (Gulshan Grover) walked out on him and his mother (Deepti Naval) to live with a blonde woman (Some plastic model thing), and his mother is secretly having an affair with a man (Caucasian, as well).
In comes Leela (Dimple Kapadia), the saree-clad visiting professor from Bombay who is married to a poet (Naashad) who cheats on her constantly, but she forgives him when he turns on his charm in the form of song.
Kris is in Leela’s class and Leela makes friends with his mother. She is an intellectual woman who captivates her students, especially Kris, with her unique teaching methods and mythological stories. Kris, the but of many virgin jokes by his friends, takes a bet to get Leela into bed. At first, he wants to call it off because ’She’s too nice, ’ but then he starts taking her out and wooing her, and in the process, falling for all her charm, the beautiful, colorful world she keeps on talking about. After calling home to find out his husband has a woman over, she jumps into bed with Kris, but he denies it to his friends.
Meanwhile, his relationship with his parents is on the edge. His father tries his best to act as Americanized as possible, but Kris is bitter at his relationship with the blonde. Then, he finds out his mother is in love with her own man, and storms out of the house not because of the relationship, but because she hid it from him. Then we have the arrival of Naashad, Leela’s husband, who is not upset over the relationship at all, but rather offers his own philosophy in some excellent dialogues.
What happens to Leela and Kris? Just watch and find out.
The story is way too sloppily thrown together, but all in all its not a bad movie, either. Dimple Kapadia does a good job, although the character is a bit monotonous. Amol Mhatre (Krishna) is not bad, either, but I can not see him coming in further movies. In my opinion, he looked and probably was, way too young for this role. Deepti Naval also does a good job as Krishna’s mother, who has her own issues to sort through. Its even pleasant to see Gulshan Grover out of one of his annoying ’Bad Man’ roles.
The film questions a lot of topics that some movies have already covered, and some that they have not. For example, does being Indian simply mean wearing the clothes or playing the Sitar? Can non-Indians manage to fully fit into the world of Indians? I am glad they did not feel a need to focus too much on Krishna’s initiation into Indian heritage-seeking. ’American Desi’ did that already.
A decent film, but can not even begin to compare to something like ’Chutney Popcorn’.