Based on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s book of the same name, The Mistress of Spices revolves around the romantic and personal conflicts of Tilo (Aishwarya Rai), a beautiful young woman trained in the ancient and magical art of spices. Gifted with special powers to help those who approach her, Tilo can sense people’s problems with the unique ability to look into their past and future.
Tilo works in a small San Francisco store called Spice Bazaar, where, with the guidance of her spices, she finds the perfect remedy for anyone who walks through her door. However, she must obey three basic rules: she must only use the spices to help others, she should not touch another human’s skin and she must never leave her store.
When Doug (Dylan McDermott), a handsome, enigmatic architect crashes his Harley Davidson outside her San Francisco store, she has to tend to his wounds, and her life is changed forever.
Tilo’s own desires are stirred and she wonders if there is more to life than helping others. The spices begin to punish her and the more she falls in love and defies the rules, the more her customers suffer. Tilo is confronted with a painful dilemma. If she turns her back on her way of life, all the people she has helped will suffer. If she doesn’t, she will lose Doug forever.
Mistress of Spices’ is probably going to be wildly successful among the people who loved ’Chocolat’ and ’Like Water for Chocolate’. It had all of the potential to be a sensuous, thoughtful mediation on cultural traditions and female desire, but ultimately it collapsed into a superstitious, sentimental, hollywood-weepy happy ending romance.