“When circumstances throw an American country boy and a Himalayan village belle together, the ‘apple pie’ gets a smattering of ‘masala,’ only to prove that ‘You Can’t Curry Love!'”
That’s from the official synopsis of a film called Americanizing Shelley that’s being released this weekend. It’s a production of something called American Pride Films, and stars Namrata Singh Gujral. It had its premiere at the Nashville Film Festival (wonderfully known as NAFF) a couple of weeks ago. Here’s the trailer:
In the video post here, Michelle Malkin endorses the film, describing a scene that is “highly unpopular in HollyWeird” and says that “for once, it will be worth shelling out the big bucks… to support a movie that supports America.” According to this website, the film is “riling the hate-America brigade.” It interviews Singh Gujral, who says she’s “not a political person,” although as Vinod noted here two years ago, she’s certainly been, er, honored in a political setting. As for the early reviews, the LA Weekly calls the film “minor but sweet,” while the Washington Post dismisses it for “embarrassingly low-rent production values.” Finally, although the film appears made for the mainstream U.S. commercial market, Variety opines that “screenwriter and star Namrata Singh Gujral will probably find her most appreciative aud among young Indian moviegoers who want something outside the arthouse.” Your thoughts?
Oh, I saw an ad for this on HotAir a while back. Looks pretty amateurish, from the clips I’ve seen. The comments were sort of interesting at the HotAir site……
Amusingly cringe-worthy. But this ladki is hot.
I can’t explain why, but I hate everything about this movie as it’s advertised in the trailer, the piss taking of Sikhs, the depiction of Indian guys, the exaggerated camp, Bollywood East-West fusion, flogged more time than a carpet cleaner flogs a rug, Indians as abunch of witless banana boat refugees waiting to be schooled and seduced by white people. Sorry, it’s not something I can rationalise, it’s just a gut level response thing.
I think what you are trying to say, Red Snapper, is that it seems like a bad movie. Wouldn’t disagree with that characterization.
OH WOW!!! It looks so great! The clashing of culture! the silly bollywood dance numbers! The funny accents. As an Amercan Born Con…….snoooooooooooooooooooore……..snoooooooooooore………….snoooooooooooore……
Sorry!I fell asleep for second.
THATS HOW EXCITED I AM FOR THIS MOVIE
YAY!
Did anyone catch the racist/homophobic reference? The young Sikh boy whose sexuality seemed ambiguous said he was going outside to play with the goat. This movie looks like garbage. An endorsement by the Washington Times and Malkin? Please. I’d rather watch Fox News.
Well MD, it’s the whole Bollywood in a western setting scenes of dancing, that I’ve seen in so many films, TV productions, film student shorts that I’ve seen, that kind of thing, garish broad ethnic comedy and gungadin head wagging narratives that annoy me in diaspora cinema.
Just… saw… trailer… gall bladder… and stomach… fighting over… who vents… first…
A girl from a punjabi family comes to America and try to asslimate into new country. The all I need to know that I will like this movie.
Like I’ve said many times in the past asslimation and intergration rule.
Yeah, you’ll like it clueless.
Heh, heh. Looks funny. We need more movies and less films.
This “teach the how to be American!” motif is played out. And, from the trailer, I saw no new angle displayed. At all.
Yeah, you know, because goat-fucker jokes about rag heads always make for fun times.
I wonder what michelle would think of Gujral’s Sikh faith? Wouldn’t Gujral’s father (if he wore the turban) be a legitimate target for profiling, according to the ole firecracker? Are they going to throw that in the movie? Right before Gujral’s character and her white suitor produce a totally assimilated child who votes Republican from the crib?
this looks like a crappy movie my little brother and his drunk goon friends would make.
Well, Manju, I enjoy low, middle and high brow movies! I mean, I like Adam Sandler movies, so I’m not a movie snob. This just didn’t peak my interest as a movied, but maybe that’s because the girl is disgustingly pretty (why should I care, says petty jealous old MD?) and the guy just seems to young. Actually, Red Snapper is right: it seems a bit like a self-conscious student film. If you want to celebrate American assimilation, that’s fine. There are funnier and more clever ways to do it.
The trailer was a pain to watch. I really wonder what audience they are trying to target. Desis are definitely not going to be keen to watch aspects of their culture come under the magnifying glass by non-desis … and it feels like the implication here is that the transition from a ‘worm to a butterfly’ happens when an indian gets ‘americanized’. That’s definitely not going to appeal to me and many other desis as well.
The same audience that believes in the White Man’s Burden.
Celebrating assimilation = making gungadin jokes about ‘goofy’ dudes in turbans?
Don’t apologize; seems to be an apt characterization (strangely, one of my acquaintances was talking about this movie the other day. She used far stronger words….and expletives)
Red Snapper, why so prickly? I am agreeing with you. I meant the theme, as a general theme for a film, any old film and not this one in particular, is fine. Ideas are fine to explore. The execution is here, is skin-crawling.
So will someone actually dare to go see this film in the theater and bring back a full report?
Here is a good background on how and why this film was made. It is just propoganda.
I thought I was being cutting, not prickly MD! I’ll try and do cuddly next time.
I would love to see the movie. But I don’t know if the movie is coming to Canada.
Surely a film this classy has to have the involvement of at least one Wayan brother?
Hmm. Looks like my gall bladder won out.
Hmmmmm, it’s the American versus British English, er, blogging, problem. By the way, I never get Brit irony. I always, stupidly, take the joke seriously.
Thanks for the link incog,
My favorite –
So they marketed this film as PRO-American, and no one in Hollywood would pick up the screenplay cuz they saw how bad it sucked. So Gujral went out and made it herself citing that the reason why is that the movie is “pro-american.” Looking at that trailer shows NOTHING pro-American about it!!!
I actually am curious to watch the movie now and see how I too can become a better American. That supports American by assimilation.
Sigh, for every Namesake there’s like 15,000 fools like these here in my lovely town of Hollywood.
Yeah, I don’t like this movie..
someone said the motif of assimilation is played out yet wasn’t the namesake about assimilation ???
I don’t think ABCD’s will like this movie, FOB’s might, little kids might like it too..
Why might “FOBs” like this? It portrays them as goat fuckers waiting to be saved by the white man.
Looks like I won’t be able to watch it. The only place this film is showing in the Southern California area is in the Pro-Republican County in the city of Orange. Suspect, no, that in a lovely city like mine there isn’t a premiere in HOLLYWOOD but in the City of Orange?
I will, if SM (that could be the Mutiny or you, Sid Uncle) foots the bill. 😉
” I don’t think ABCD’s will like this movie, FOB’s might, little kids might too “
@Sadaiyappan – Yes, because we FOBs absolutely love not only how we are presented in these movies , but also the concept of how the Americans are going to transform us ‘ugly FOBby Betty’s into ‘pretty American booty’s …
.. in fact I am waiting for an American to ‘show me the light’ right now… and oh, by the way, ‘FOBs might, little kids might like it too’. I like the way you grouped us with little kids there. That was simply classic. Hurray for you !
I think the whole ‘School of cooking and cleaning’ bit is amateurish and, like Red Snapper characterizes it, very student-project-y. Anyone with even an iota of intelligence will know not to paint with such broad strokes. And yes, I hate Adam Sandler movies too.
Finally, idiot trolls should find a life. This post is about a silly movie. Not some kind of ABCD/FOB match mudslinging fest.
Clueless, if there was a drug that did the opposite of oxsoralen, would you take it?
I think I just lost my lunch there. It’s not just that the execution of the movie is bad, it’s that I can’t imagine them making a movie with this agenda that could be good. A good movie shows some respect for its subjects, or if it’s going to make them all two dimensional cardboard characters, at least has something funny to say about them (which again requires knowing them). This is a movie all about immigration cliches, and since it takes them seriously rather than exploding them, it will necessarily also be cliched.
this movie looks good.
after about six pints of beer, followed by a few jack n cokes. it would be interesting to find some meaning in it after that.
it does have the bus driver from bhaji on the beach (which is very good).
I will not even watch this movie if they pay me to watch it. Clueless Please Enlighten me on why you want to watch it?
uh… it looks terrible. like an immigrant version of she’s all that.
Namrata used to go by the last name “Cooper” and not “Singh Gujral.” A bit of investigation reveals that the founder and CEO of “American Pride Films” is a former Naval Pilot named “Joe Cooper.” And now it all makes sense. Americanizing Shelly is really Americanizing Namrata. The Times of India connects the final dot…
.
This is really the story about how a real life girl from a Himalayan village, Namrata, was “Americanized” by a U.S. Military man. What could be more patriotic than starring in a film about her own life (even if you have to throw in some goat fucker jokes)? This is a real GOP power couple.
I am so sick of the “white men are great for you” theme of all movies. It is always the same old shit. Asian guys are the ugly ones that play with goats, who cant sexually satisfy you so come put some cream in your coffee.
Bend it like beckham had an Indian girl who was to athletic to like unathletic Indian guys
The whole “white people are so great” theme is in ever aspect of movies and tv.
“My Name is Earl” has a interracial case of a white woman and black guy, but I have never even seen the 2 hug each other let alone kiss.
“The Pelican Brief” movie had no physical contact between Denzell and Julia, even though in the book the characters bang the hell out of each other.
So it is okay to show white men dominate the hell out of colored women, but when a white woman is shown to be with a man of color, there can only be “implied” romance between them.
If you can, please give a name of a leading actress in hollywood that was shown to be with a man of color and displayed physical contact on screen.
Also name a actress of color that hasnt been with a white man on screen.
“School of cooking and cleaning” ?? Very cute. You couldnt pay me enough to watch this piece of shit.
“Also name a actress of color that hasnt been with a white man on screen”.
the latino girl from scrubs
“If you can, please give a name of a leading actress in hollywood that was shown to be with a man of color and displayed physical contact on screen”.
Heather Graham- the Guru. 😉
incredible movie!! the juxtaposition of despair and determination, mingled with emotional philosophy will driving any every one with heart choking tears and sobbing and also laughing like death.i strongly recommend this movie for the glorious benefit of humanity and everythingy from himalaya to tora bora tora.
Mira (#45) what can I say, these desis are venomous. But you’ll note that of the three reviews I linked to in the post, two are positive, including the very LA/OC Weekly one that you excerpted.
Heather Graham is with a guy that is half white in the Guru
and that girl from “scrubs” doesnt count because you dont know if she has never been with a white guy on film just because she is currently with a black guy on a TV show. Plus alot of Dominican’s have African in their family.
Also Mira, if you are happy with this little bone “B” list hollywood threw at Indian’s then God help us all.
Okay, okay. I can’t help but come out of the closet on this one. A couple of people have been pegging me for a proper review of the film but I’m too
lazybusy to write one. I–my non-desi, black American self–liked the film. As I explained to another desi friend, I filed it under cotton candy. I’ve seen it gasp TWICE. I got to meet Namrata (and Joe) and spent the better part of two days driving her assistant around Nashville.I think anyone who regularly reads SM, if they chose to write this story, would have written it differently. However, this is Namrata’s point of view and yes, the film was specifically written for the average moviegoer and particularly, young ones (13-30) in mind. Also, this was her first screenplay. If there’s any other film folks reading, you know that about says it all. For international audiences, she wanted to present America as the multicultural society it is (which she did subtlely) and that the Sikh religion has nothing in common with radical Islam (which she did less subtly) through scripted moments. [As for the goat thing, I’m not sure what that was all about. The actor playing her brother is gay in real life so maybe the “ambiguity” somebody mentioned was an afterthought?]
Because I’m interested in working in film, I see the situation a bit differently. I see a woman my age who just wrote, produced, and starred in an independent film that scored national and international distribution! As for the writing, and choice of topics and coverage, that is only bound to mature with time. I look forward to seeing the direction her new projects will go as they take a more nuanced approach but still maintain a fun, “average movie goer” appeal.
I mean, I agree that white men are overrated (lol!) but they do make up a large percentage of the movie going audience. 😉
Man, it’s Cinco de Mayo. I’m tryna get my margarita on. Y’all need to do the same. Peace.
I thought it was given a political slant by the producers and reviewers like Michelle Malkin?
Shocked? Ah don’t be shocked, have keyboard, will type.
t-hype: but we’re a tough* crowd around here! And, yes, I have a life despite my non-stop posting around here. I’m procrastination, as usual.
*I mean, you should see the Namesake critiques around here; plenty of lefty Booker/NYT type pablum gets panned here, as well as this green effort.
Still, your point about this movie being rough because she’s a newbie are well taken. The country song with hindi lyrics you posted on your blog, however, I liked. Now, that is fresh. So, if she goes in this direction with her new stuff, I promise I’ll give it a second chance 🙂
Kinda surprised that the ABCD masses do not like this film. It is in the same genre as Namesake, Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding, and the Gurinder Chaddhi crap that they have been peddling since the dawn of the new era. Hypocrites, anyone?