Heaven on Earth
Dir Deepa Mehta, w/ Preity Zinta, Vansh Bhardwaj. 98 min. Special Presentations.
BY Adam Nayman
August 27, 2008 12:08
Deepa Mehta’s follow-up to Water concerns a young woman (Preity Zinta) relocated from India to Brampton via an arranged marriage. Once she gets there, she finds that her new husband (Vansh Bhardwaj) is a sullen mama’s boy less interested in nurturing their union than just glumly consummating it (and not above slapping her around as an outlet for his frustrations). The first 45 minutes comprise a credible portrait of transplanted traditions, but once our much-abused heroine resolves (with the help of a Jamaican co-worker) to use magic to deal with her problems, the film falls apart. The idea to transpose a traditional Indian folktale to a contemporary Canadian setting is plenty ambitious, but as lived-in details of cultural dislocation give way to blunt symbolism and CGI serpents, Heaven on Earth becomes something that Mehta’s always-confrontational cinema has never been: evasive.
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