Chutney Popcorn

(1999, USA) 
Director: Ganatra, Nisha 
Starring: Nisha Ganatra ; Jill Hennessy

Director Nisha Ganatra's first feature, the romantic comedy Chutney Popcorn, signals the emergence of a special new talent. Ganatra mines the same rich and under-explored comic territory of the culture clash between her Indian family and her lesbian identity that she used so effectively in her short film, Junky Punky Girlz. Now, with her first feature, Ganatra fulfills the promise of her short by delivering a story both richly detailed in the traditions -- both touching and maddening -- of her ethnic heritage and how it bumps up, awkwardly, against the modern romantic life of its young lesbian heroine. 

Ganatra herself plays Reena, the free-spirited biker who has always lived in the shadow of her more traditional, and now very married, sister, Sarita (Sakina Jaffrey). The slights and stings of being the outcast in the family are easily nailed by Ganatra's character, whose nonchalant air barely masks her pain at the rejection of her mother, played with a biting humor and keen intelligence by Madhur Jaffrey, the acclaimed Indian actress who is winning raves for her role in the recently released Cotton Mary. With this dysfunctional family dynamic, it isn't surprising that when Sarita and her husband can't conceive, Reena steps up and offers to be a surrogate mother for her sister. 

Complicating matters is Reena's sexy, playful girlfriend, Lisa (winningly played by Jill Hennessey, who won a loyal cadre of lesbians who followed her recurring role as a lawyer on TV's Law and Order) whose commitment-phobia is heightened by the prospect of this arrangement. Sarita, meanwhile, rejects the idea the more Reena embraces it. Reena also has to contend with the advice and attitude of her circle of friends, whose casual asides and observations about modern dyke life give the film a hip, relevant, and truthful air. 

Chutney Popcorn works so well because Ganatra has made a lesbian romantic comedy that's about more than the usual themes and that injects truth and sensitivity into a reliable Hollywood formula. Her film examines how outsider status in a traditional, slightly crazy family forever impacts our choices, and our sense of ourselves. 

--Loren King

Source : Obtained from planetout.com