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Launderette's little sis
NINA'S HEAVENLY DELIGHTS
Directed by Pratibha Parmar
Certificate PG
THIS cracking little film bubbles from the start with such helpings of home-grown wit, enthusiasm about a story which has hints of cliché but is forgiveable anyway, and a boisterous cast who have obviously enjoyed putting it together. It is almost impossible not to like it.
Nina Shah (Shelley Conn) is a Glaswegian Asian girl undergoing an identity crisis. She has left home after falling out with her father, but when he passes away finds herself back in the fold – and having the responsibility for her family’s restaurant foisted onto her shoulders.
But as she returns she has to face not only her family but friends she had left behind.
And then she also has to deal with her new business partner Lisa (Laura Fraser), who bought 50 per cent of her father’s curry house.
Nina settles in to recreating her favourite curry dishes, and is inspired enough to enter a prestigious curry contest, ‘The best of the West’.
But she also finds herself falling for Lisa.
It is pretty predictable and straightforward stuff from here on in – but actors Shelley Conn and Laura Fraser both have a certain appeal about them and they make you want their characters to find true love.
Director Pratibha Parmar has updated the story of My Beautiful Launderette, and it finds the same ground as the marvellous 1996 Hattie MacDonald coming out movie Beautiful Thing, merely replacing two white, South London council estate teenage boys with Glaswegian women.
Where Launderette had oodles of angst to wade through, Nina’s Heavenly Delights is much more of a feel good movie.
It is perhaps a barometer of how times have changed for the communities the films portray. |
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