Salaam Namaste, 2005Directed by: Siddharth Anand
Produced by: Aditya Chopra, Yash Chopra
Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta, Arshad Warsi, Tania Zaetta
It's Kinda Like: a brief "secret identity" movie becomes a "getting to know you for REALS" movie becomes a slapstick comedy. (ugh, apparently it's a partial remake of Nine Months? It has more of the flavor of Knocked Up.)
Like I said, this is a cheeky modern comedy -- but it's also a sideways look at the experience of the Indian diaspora. Sassy, huh? The characters are all Indian expats living in Melbourne -- and interestingly, none of the plotline involves coming from India, going to India, or characters who live in India. We don't meet anyone's parents, children, or siblings. Everyone is on their own in Melbourne living a new life. We find out in brief narrated slideshows what brought each character there, and it's different for everyone -- it's also not always brought up again, which is a fun twist. We catch a glimpse into someone's backstory, and then that's all we hear about it; it serves to color our experience of that character rather than to advance the plot. (Color, not advance -- I love it!)
What holds this community together, then, if not families? Why, the radio! The film's title comes from the radio station and morning show where the main character Ambar (Preity Zinta) works. Her show involves interviewing Melbourne's successful Indian businesspeople, in order to inspire the community in general. As the film opens, we see her on the radio, and we see her listeners, too, in their own environments, performing mostly solitary activities: bagging groceries, doing the housework, exercising with headphones, cutting hair in a salon. As she speaks, we see them all react, as though they're together -- even though they're all, separately, alone.
(It was interesting to watch this movie since I sometimes listen to the local Indian AM station, which is lots of fun. The call-in portion of any show is really important, and they have shows for all kinds of things: wanna sell your car? get advice from a dentist? share health tips? discuss your investments? Plus they play Bollywood music new and old. It's a fascinating cultural experience: for interested parties in the Bay Area, it's KLOK 1170AM.)
Against this backdrop of the big-yet-small town, our heroine meets (or rather, doesn't meet) our hero: Nick, aka Nikhil Arora (Saif Ali Khan). While Ambar is precise and exacting--she's studying to be a surgeon, after all--Nick is an easygoing chef. We can tell what he thinks of himself, from the obvious touches -- get your tickets to the freezeframe gun show! -- check those Superman boxers and the bright red car! -- to the slightly-less-obvious: he's listening to a song from Dhoom (often-referenced action-movie franchise) in the car.
They *don't* meet in the sense that, because of his problems with getting up on time, he misses his radio interview, causing her to spew vitriol over the airwaves for days, trying to ruin his reputation. (Of course, the restaurant he cooks for is called "Nick of Time." Ha ha.) They have several entertaining yelling matches over the phone about this, causing apoplexies for both their bosses but hilarity for Nick and his friend -- and glee for radio listeners everywhere.
The tagline for the movie is "Let's get to know each other," which happens in two ways, in the way that many Bollywood movies contain both the film and its own sequel. The first "film" is the type of romantic comedy with "dual identities," a la You've Got Mail (sorry Meg Ryan haters, it's the only one I could think of in the moment): the main characters hate each other in one context, and fall in love as strangers in another.
Like the more modern-y films, lots of Salaam Namaste's songs serve as voiceover instead of dance music -- but here's one number where they actually dance (not genius choreography). Our stars have met for what they *think* is the first time, and you'll also see Nick's comic-relief friend Ron (Arshad Warsi), a guy who's only recently discovered women, and is desperately terrible at figuring them out (the first time we meet him, he's chatting up what we can all see is a hooker -- why a hooker would be in the suburbs is another question altogether). And in this clip they're all at an event featured in lots of Bollywood movies as an excuse to get people together: a wedding. Cause, in Australia, doesn't every wedding end in ripping off your clothes and running into the water?
Their hidden identities are revealed pretty fast, and then we get to the *real* plot of the film, the Racy Part. I'll let the adorable stars themselves explain. This gives you an idea of the film's feel and comedy style (this film even has bloopers in the credits, which seems *totally* American-comedy to me).
Aren't they cute? Yes, that's right -- they said "living together." They've fallen in sort-of love, and Nick urges that they should live together -- in separate rooms, of course. Then the getting-to-know-you proceeds apace. Something I've touted about Bollywood before: they have enough screen and story time to show you the roundness of their characters. Nick may have trouble waking up in the morning, but he's no slouch: he's an exacting cook and a neat freak. Ambar's the messy one, though a good decorator; she does, though, have a tendency to yell at him kind of a lot. We see the good times AND the bad, and they're not just comedy-bad, but upsetting-bad.
Because -- scandal! Not only is there *onscreen kissing* in this movie, BUT what you might expect of the logical results of living together. If it's a movie, at least. See if you can figure out what that is:
Scandal! And no, they are NOT married in the above clip. Scandal!
Because they're miles away from their parents, all the characters have to figure out what's going on, as it were, for themselves. A disparate community, all in Melbourne for different reasons, they have to support themselves and each other. They have to be their own family, or make new ones out of the people around them. That also means they have to get to know each other as individuals; they can't be thrown together by the social family structure, they have to find each other in the city and make the effort. Because the concept of Tradition doesn't really play into this film, on the surface at least; it's a modern story in a modern city, about people figuring out how to be modern.
The reasons for moving to Melbourne, revealed in the lightning-flash narrations (voice -- and cameo slapstick -- provided by Abhishek Bachchan!) are a fascinating range of types, from all places in India, from all walks of life, for all reasons. There are those who came in order to consciously forge a new path, following their dreams. We have Ambar, who came on a one-year student exchange program and decided to stay, escaping any number of arranged marriages. We have Nick, who came to go to architecture school as his dad wanted, and ended up following his dream to be a chef. We have Ambar's fellow med student Jignesh (played by Jugal Hansraj), who's a terrible student but just wanted to escape being a sari salesman all his life.
Then there are those characters who are more swept along by the winds of fate: they've changed locations, but their basic personality continues on. There's Nick's restauranteur boss, who went from being a small-scale glutton in India to a large-scale one in Melbourne: new job, character essentially unchanged. There's Ambar's boss, loud-voiced drama queen and chronic hummer, who just wants someone to ask him to sing on the radio. And my personal comedy-relief favorite: Nick and Ambar's landlord (Jaaved Jaffrey), a once-poor, shiftess nobody who won the lottery and has OVERassimilated into Australian society, while remaining essentially the same dirtbag he ever was. "I WAS Indian. WAS," he says. "NOW I'm Australian." Food for thought, eh? ;o) Here's part of his award-winning comic performance:
(Jeez, he looks like a tan Dave Gardner. Who is probably no one you know. But dude, it totally looks like him. Especially with the sideburns. Just sayin'.)
This movie, I must confess, actually made me laugh to the point that I almost sprayed my laptop with my beverage. The side characters are really well done: sometimes clownishly exaggerated, but with committed acting that doesn't feel too over-the-top "winky." They believe themselves. And they're well-balanced by our heroes' self-determined "normality." We're all just trying to live our lives, right? We're all normal to ourselves . . .
The Verdict: A fresh-feeling comedy, with appealing stars, good acting, hilarious side characters, and a hint of modern social dilemma. Me likee!
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