I have seen a Thai version of "Boys in the Band." Through the first half hour of the movie from India adapted from his short story "A muggy night in Mumbai" and directed by Mahesh Dattani, I thought I was in for an Indian version. The party is smaller, one third female, and includes no one approaching the verbal viciousness of Harold... though the host, Kamalesh (Ankur Vikal) has some of Michael's brokenheartedness, and the last third has something of a variant of the "truth game" from "Boys in the Band." Fortunately, this is treated as farce rather than melodrama.

The heartbroken Ankur Vikal cannot carry a movie. Fortunately, as he mopes, his ex, (Sharad Faredoon Dodo Bhujwala) takes over. Sharad is a flamboyant sissy, still in love with Kamalesh and wonderously able to defuse fraught situations.

Sharad has concocted a ceremony to help Sharad recover from being dumped by the man he recently rescued from despond and fell in love with. Before the ceremony is finished (with Kamalesh tearing up a picture of him and his beloved in a naked embrace), Kamalesh's sister Kiran (Rinkie Khanna) shows up with her fiancé in tow. He is (of course!) the very man who broke Kamalesh's heart and whose hold on Sharad is being exorcised, Ed (Atul Kulkarni).

Kamalesh has pledged his friends not to tell anyone about Ed. They all think that someone should tell Kiran, but Kamalesh holds them to their promise. However, there is that photo that was not torn up. Let's say that it gets around.

In the most hilarious part of the movie, Deepali (Heebah Shah) has the inspiration to tell Kiran than Kamalesh is depressed because (self-proclaimed "gay as a goose") Sharad has broken up with Kamalesh to become straight. Sharad shakes his head in disbelief and then goes with the story in a hilarious travesty of "Penis Power" and heterosexual privilege.

There is also a conventional (noisy) wedding in progress next door, and the hunky servant whom at least Sharad believes is providing physical solace to Kamalesh, and a closeted television star (Sanjit Bedi ), and more.

The frequency of flashbacks in the movie seems excessive to me, making for a needlessly choppy exposition. They mostly show the course of the relationship of Kamalesh and Ed until the climactic urging by Kamalesh that Ed come out of the closet and Ed's announcement that there can be no future for a male-male couple. The highlight of the flashbacks is a delirious dance number involving the two and mannequins and various clothes that Kamalesh has designed for Ed. (I won't give away the most amusing touch in this.)

Having made it through the relatively boring and stereotype-heavy first half hour, I enjoyed most of the rest. BTW, the present of the movie is one afternoon (not night) on a house in the country (not in Mumbai). Sunny Josef's cinematography was mostly functional, but more inventive in the more stylized parts, especially the dance with mannequins number.

There are some plot points I am not sure I caught. The dialogue is almost entirely in (lilting Indian-)English with no subtitles (though the listing claimed that it had "closed captioning.") The accents were not the problem. Rather, the audibility of some of the dialogue was. I had the volume turned up to its maximum for the indoor dialogue scenes and still could not make out every word/line.

The only DVD extra is a trailer for the movie.

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Much more charming than Taxi Zum Klo, this is my entry for today in my last-half of June GLBT binge of epining and JPS246's writeoff.


Those who enjoy "Mango Souffle" would probably also enjoy the more melodramatic (though leavened by considerable humor) Japanese film "Okogé" and (Turkish-German director) Ferzan Orzpeck's film in French, His Secret Life.

©2006, Stephen O. Murray


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD