The Mistress of Spices

Plot synopsis:
Tilo (Aishwarya Rai), an immigrant from India, is a shopkeeper, an unusually strong clairvoyant, and a chosen Mistress of Spices. The Spices she gives to her customers help them to satisfy their certain needs and desires, such as "sandalwood to dispel painful memories; black cumin seed to protect against evil eye."
As a young girl, Tilo was initiated as one of several young Mistresses of Spices by the First Mother (Zohra Sehgal), who warns the girls about certain rules they must follow, or face dire consequences. They are instructed never to leave their respective stores all around the world, physically touch the skin of the people they meet, or use the great and incomprehensible strength and power of the Spices to their own ends.
Tilo ends up in the San Francisco Bay Area in a store called "Spice Bazaar". Tilo's customers include Haroun, a cab driver (Nitin Ganatra), a grandfather (Anupam Kher) dealing with an American-born granddaughter Geeta (Padma Lakshmi), Kwesi, a man trying to impress his girlfriend (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Jagjit, a teenager trying to fit in at school (Sonny Gill Dulay).
Her life takes a turn one day, when a young architect named Doug (Dylan McDermott) crashes his motorcycle outside her store. Tilo tends to his injuries while trying to ignore their mutual romantic attraction. Her life changes when he touches her and they begin to fall in love.
But the Spices are suddenly angry and jealous, and things soon start to go sour in her relationships with her other customers. Haroun gets in an accident, Geeta's family situation does not improve, Jagjit falls in with the wrong crowd at school, and Kwesi's girlfriend breaks up with him. Doug comes to meet her that night and sadly tells her that his Native American-born mother had died.
Tilo recognizes that the source of these misfortunes is her breaking of the rules. The First Mother comes to her in a vision and scolds her for choosing Doug over the Spices. She vows that she will return to India, and posts a notice about a closing sale. She goes all out to help her customers one last time and tells the Spices that she will spend just one night with Doug, and then she will give herself utterly to them. She closes the store and goes off with Doug for the night. After a night of love-making, she leaves him a note that she must leave and cannot return, but that she will always deeply love him. Then she goes back to the store and sets the Spices on fire, with her at the center of the flames, as a sign of eternal servitude and slavery to the mystical Spices.
Doug comes searching for her, and finds the store devastated. But Tilo has not been burned after all; she is still there, alive and barely conscious. There is no sign of a fire, but there has been an earthquake. We see a vision of the First Mother sitting at the beach, telling her that because she demonstrated her willingness to give up everything for the Spices, now she can have everything she desires and the Spices will never desert her again. Doug agrees to help her rebuild the store, and she happily reunites with him as they walk along the beach holding hands.

Tags: murder, flashback

Review:
Chadha co-wrote the screenplay here with her husband.The movie follows Tilo, played by Aishwarya Rai, who is a member of an old, mystical cult that worships spice in all its forms.
Tilo, who also has the power to see visions of the future, soon ends up helping a whole coterie of characters: a man (Anupam Kher) who is distressed over his granddaughter (Padma Lakshmi), a woman who has grown up in America and adopted western ways, much to his dismay; Jagjit (Sonny Gill Dulay), a teenager who is having trouble with the kids at school; Haroun (Nitin Chandra Ganatra), a cab driver that has a cloudy future; Kwesi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a man trying to win the heart of a woman.But to be successful, Tilo must follow three rules: one, she must never leave the store; two, she must never touch the skin of another person; three, she can never use the spices for her own gain.
One day a man (Dylan McDermott) falls off his motorcycle outside her store and they are both instantly drawn to one another, challenging Tilo's devotion to her cause and threatening her control over the spices.This is a nice, light film, reminiscent in many ways of Chocolat, with Aishwarya Rai in the Juliette Binoche role.
I didn't think the voice-over narration of Rai's character's inner thoughts was entirely successful, although I can't see how else you could really do it; funny enough, the voice-overs reminded me of another spice-related movie, David Lynch's Dune.
She becomes the Mistress of Spices and is sent to the Spice Bazaar in San Francisco, with the mission of following three basic rules: help her clients to accomplish their desires with the spices, but never hers; never leave the store; and never be touched in the skin.
When she meets the handsome American architect Doug (Dylan McDermott), she feels a great attraction and desire for him, breaking the first rule and being punished by the spices."The Mistress of Spices" is a predictable but pleasant film that uses the idea of movies like "Chocolate", "Woman on Top", "Como Agua Para Chocolate" blending romance with food or spice or chocolate or cookies.
Further, the gorgeous Miss World 1994 and Queen of Bollywood Aishwarya Rai makes this little film worth with her beauty and participating in most of the scenes.
However, being a "mistress of spices," Aishwarya is bound by certain rules, which she begins to find suppressing and enslaving once she begins to fall in love.
This film looks at the art of using spices to improve lives and delves into Aishwarya's internal conflict between love and duty, making this a very interesting and reinvigorating movie..
It's difficult for any one who has a good appreciation for culinary art not to be attracted to this spicy shop, spacious, tastefully appointed, with thousands of colourful spices displayed in so many different interesting fashions.
A sheer joy for the eyes.So is Aishwaryi Rai, Miss World of 1994, who graces the screen with wide-eyed innocence through most of the movie and appears in the last scene radiating with alluring glamour in a bright red evening gown, with her hair finally let down, falling like graceful ripples to her shoulder.Even accepting the premise of a fairy tale, it's hard to believe how Tilo (Rai) can run her spice shop all by herself without EVER leaving it, the first of three conditions for having her power bestowed by "the spices".
This "power" is a vague ability to see other people's past and sometimes future and to use spices to help them.The romance with dashing architect Doug (Dylan McDermott) is appropriately low-key, and hence believable.
Make no mistake though, it is a poor film.Ill keep it short because there isn't really much to say.Story: Tilo (Aishwarya) is part of some ancient mystical cult which uses the power of spices to heal people, around the world.
I mean I think that some subplot was needed to show the way the spices work (or however you want to word it), but they really detracted form the main story, which itself wasn't up to much in the first place.I think the very basic concept of the film was handled poorly.
I think the fault does lie in the script and the direction as no one had any real scope for performance and they were all just basically required to look good for the camera.Unnecessary voice-overs, really got to me As I said, if you go in with no expectations at all, you could well enjoy it, but its still a poorly made film.4/10.
The story was created and directed by Paul Mayeda Berges (with help from Gurinder Chada) who has given us such fine films as "Paris, je t'aime', 'Bride & Prejudice' and 'Bend It Like Beckham'.
So the question arises as to why this film just doesn't quite make it: the reason may be the tough marriage of fantasy with reality, assigning more importance to dialog between the Mistress and the spices than to the development of storyline.Tilo (the ravishingly beautiful Aishwarya Rai) was taken in as a child by a spiritually inclined First Mother (Zohra Sehgal) who trains young girls the mysteries of spices - their magic, their meaning and their rigid life style imposed on the developing Mistresses.
Those who gain the secrets of the spices are sent into the world, warned never to use the magic for them selves, never to touch human skin, and never to leave the shops where their spices are shared to help mankind.
Tilo moves to the Bay Area and does good deeds for her customers until she meets Doug (Dylan McDermott) who needs her care after a motorcycle accident.
They touch, their eyes speak of mutual desire and Tilo is thrown into conflict of being a mistress of spices or of having a love life.
How situations and destiny work through the story is the meager line of the tale, the majority of the script is Tilo communicating with her spices!The cast contains some fine character actors such as Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Caroline Chikezie, Anupam Kher, and of course Zohra Sehgal.
When a film relies on over 50% of it's dialogue through the source of spoken thought it is corrupt of imagination.On a more general note: Mistress of the Spices is a poor story poorly told.
She just stands and twinkles her eyes, coy and shy, reserved, steeped in age old tradition and modesty, wrapped in Indian sarees.Doug (McDermott) acts much better, has more expression to his face, delivers his lines well.The customers to her shop add color, contrast and variety.
They all look lost and scattered, like little kids who have memorized their lines and come to get a pound of garlic or some crushed almond powder.It is like when you know which spices provide what relief, I would not visit that store again.
The story did not do the movie justice and the script poorly written.The actors looked lost except Doug (McDermott).
Overall the film is a huge success, Paul Berges has directed with true brilliance and truly captured the title, 'The Mistress Of Spices.'.
Now, Tilo lives outside San Francisco and runs a well-known spice shop, where she is revered as an herbalist and good person.
I don't even want to waste my time explaining what went wrong with the movie,but this is the worst adaptation of a book i have ever seen.
It steers very close to "so bad it's good" territory but does not quite get there.Plot summary: A neurotic workaholic Indian woman completely loses it but love finds her because she looks like miss-world '94.Some of the movie's underlying message is very offensive, let's do a quick rundown: "any problem can be solved by the use of the appropriate spice" - consumption is the answer..."you must not use your powers for yourself, must not touch a man or leave the store" - you also happen to be a woman..."there is one spice for each person" - your personality is a constant, no need for free will..."this store customer experienced trauma, violence and injustice in the home country he had to leave as a refugee, let's give him some spice so that he forgets all about it" - small people should not expect justice...Then there are the countless holes in the script, for example how come the mistress of spices never talks about her strange obligations even though her cult leader never explicitly forbid talking, how did she gets to the US, how did she open this very nice store, could this cult with its amazing powers not have more ambitious goals, like world peace or something?
There is nothing about these script holes that can be explained away by declaring this to be "magical realism", as the point of magic is tricking the audience into not seeing what's happening behind the scene, and in this movie it's the exact opposite, the magic weighs a ton and is obvious scaffolding for the rest.There were moments of total camp that had me working hard to suppress laughter: the bike ride across San Francisco bay, the car ride, the whole falling in love part, the add-styled imagery.I guess that magical realism is one of the most difficult style to write a script in, to follow through with the ideas in this movie properly would have required years of additional work on the script, lots and lots more thinking.Finally, the actors' performance were not so bad.
Written by the same team, Mistress of Spices is a mythical tale which makes the Indian spices the star of the movie, set in a medicinal store, with Rai as the conjurer and mixer of modern day "bomoh" like medicine to cure mankind of their ills.Some might not like the way the movie presented itself, with its cheesy focus and voice-over on the qualities of the various spices.
However, the way that the spices are shot, made them look beautiful in their sacks or glass bottles.Hidden behind these herbs is the mistress Tilo (Rai, meaning sesame seed), whose precognitive powers are granted to her by the spices.
You see, being a mistress has its rules, and they are to never let another skin touch yours (ooh, touchy), to never step out of the shop (that's pretty restrictive and a possible loop hole) and not to concoct anything for one's own benefit.So while trying her best to stay away from the good looking man, the movie spins into a tale of forbidden love, with punishment meted out by the powers that be dwelling within those spices - I tell you, they're quite vengeful.
A tale in which spices have magical powers and the mistress of spices, a beautiful Hindu girl owner of a spice bazaar in San Francisco, is a sort of good witch.
Moreover, the movie is corny and has no charm.Some of the actors are good and believable in their roles, especially the always lovely Aishwarya Rai as the Mistress Lilo, Nirin Ganatra as her friend taxi-driver Haroun, and Anupam Kher as the traditional grandfather of a modern Indo-American girl.
Zhora Sehgal is always great and pops up in all sorts of films as "miscellaneous old Indian lady" and Aishwariya Rai is quite astonishingly loose-the-thread-of-what-you-were-talking-about beautiful.On the other hand Dylan McDermott is awful, utterly wooden and unconvincing as the architect-biker.
Sorry to say I found this movie pretty grim.I did find Ashwarya Rai to be quite luminous and lovely.Her performance seemed pretty nuanced but somewhat one dimensional.The story is confusing and hard to describe.It is like a lenghty advertisement for both Ashwarya and spices/aromatics/mystical healing properties of various substances.Mind you the rattling chilies wore thin on me!
I went with 2 of my sons who are major film going people and when asked to describe the plot line,simply could't.It is long- and feels long.Dylan McDermott is easy on the eyes- he uses all the usual tricks to allure- unshaven,motorcycle,architect....but there is essentially no chemistry between him and Ashwarya Rai. I was very disappointed in this film.I unfortunately could't recommend going to it.A rental on a dark gloomy November night might be OK- warm colors,good cinematography etc..
One day, Doug (Dylan McDermott) walks in leaving her powers in chaos.This is a movie of magical surrealism.
The director (Paul Mayeda Berges) has done some decent work (Bend it Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice), but this movie is bad.
It's full of plot loopholes, slow, melodramatic, relies too much on exposition.The movie isn't helped by Aishwarya Rai, a beautiful woman, but a mediocre actress.
I like the fact that they didn't overdo her hair and make-up and her outfits were plain.The story was a bit weird and the plot almost non-existent but, non the less, it was an interesting take on the magic genre.If you're an Aishwarya Rai fan then I would suggest that you watch the movie and make up your own mind.
This has to be one of the worst films ever, although I have to admit it is better than Bride and Prejudice, nothing can be worse than that.The only thing good about this film is Aishwarya Rai's performance, she can act, shame about the accent.This film just doesn't make sense, there's so many questions that run through your mind whilst watching i.e How did she come to the us in the first place?, how does she get all essential needed if she never leaves the shop?
Even worse, he fails to lift the movie from being a mere depiction of absurd hocus pocus to one where magical elements would seem almost natural even in the humdrum life of a Western city.In the end, I felt impelled to laugh every time I saw Aish go up to the window to gaze out wordlessly with a bunch of red peppers hanging behind her.Perhaps the director believed he could ride on the bandwagon of success that all Indian things seem to have currently but he seems to have miscalculated his own ability to interpret a story such as this even with wife Gurinder standing by his side..
Where else can you get a lot of spice knowledge, see Aishwarya Rai close up and a nice eggplant recipe all in the same movie..
Unfortunately, while Miss Rai and Dylan McDermott do a lovely job and the direction is fine, I felt the story itself was a bit of a letdown.
Frankly, I found this to be very problematic.The film finds Rai in San Francisco running a spice shop.
Everything was in place for this to be a real benchmark American Bollywood fusion flick (are there enough out there for that to be an actual genre?), but Dylan McDermott was so horribly miscast as Aishwarya Rai's love interest that I was gagging every time they shared the screen.
Really, this film could have been so much more powerful with a more appropriate male lead.The idea of the magic of the spices was a bit of a stretch for me at first, but Aishwarya played it well and carried it off nicely.
This, however, was WAY below my expectations, and I think that could have been prevented by simply adding one ingredient - a different director.Aishwarya is absolutely beautiful, and I'm sure that she can act - when she's given something to work with.
But the movie starts with Tilo already in the spice shop in Oakland, then shows how she got there in a series of flashbacks.
Since Aishwarya can't leave the store, there's not a lot of action--how many times can you pick up a handful of spices and make it interesting?
My summary is from my favourite line in the film, when Doug pesters Tilo for the name of his spice and she refuses to tell him because it contradicts with her feelings for him.
Aishwarya Rai plays Tilo to the pulp, as an innocent, as a young woman wanting to break free and live, as an understated beauty who knows nothing but spices, and most importantly as an enigma.
First of all I do not know how I landed up to watch this unbearable movie...The characters are really weak, The plot nothing great.
Paul Mayeda Berges, known for his collaboration with his wife, Gurinder Chadha, on the films: Bend it like Beckham, and Bride and Prejudice, takes a role in the director's chair, in the book-to-movie adaptation: Mistress of Spices.Raised as a mistress of the spice at a young age, Tilo, moves to San Francisco, and opens an Indian Spices store.
Having a second sight, and so being able to see into other people's lives, Tilo is able to use her power of the spice, to help others.
However, McDermott is easily out acted by his counterpart Aishwarya Rai. Rai seemingly appears to vent her feelings, but this is exactly the character of Tilo: she has to let the Spices dictate her life, and not her true emotions.With good cinematography and fairly decent acting, Mistress of Spices has the basics covered.
My main problem with the movie lies with Tilo (Rai), and what is it that she sees in Doug (McDermott) that actually makes her want to break the rules of the spices.
The only element in this movie that is like the book is that the "magical" woman is sent far away from her homeland, with her vast knowledge of how spices can help others, and her own struggle with keeping with the rules of the spices.
I liked the fact that I learned something about some of the spices, and the cinematography was nice, but I've seen better, I found this movie to be slow and dull.
If you look through the characters and the story you'll appreciate this movie.
The use of voice-over for Tilo's thoughts may have been necessary so that the audience could know about the different spices, but it just did not feel right.
Doug's girlfriend suddenly shows up in Tilo's Indian spice store so she can find out how to cook for him.