Bollywood

Bollywood Hollywood is a delightful, cross-cultural parody of both India's and America's musical film traditions. Directed by Deepa Mehta (Earth), Bollywood Hollywood concerns the desperate effort of wealthy businessman Rahul (Rahul Khanna) to get his mother and grandmother off his back when it comes to his romantic life. In love with a white pop-star girlfriend (Jessica Paré), Rahul's fortunes change when she dies. Still grieving, he is told by his mother that Rahul's only sister won't be allowed to marry until he finds a nice Indian girl to wed. The solution: hire a beautiful, dark-skinned, allegedly Spanish escort named Sue (Lisa Ray) to pose as his Indian fiancée. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, Mehta pokes fun at a number of Bollywood cinema clichés, especially that familiar mix of modern luxury and old world traditions, melodramas involving the saddest of character backstories, and spontaneous musical numbers that remind one as much of Hollywood's Golden Age as Bollywood's current one. --Tom Keogh