Movie Review - Mistress of Spices

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CAST: Aishwarya Rai, Dylan McDermott, and Zohra Segal
DIRECTED BY: Paul Mayeda Berges

After the success of “Bride & Prejudice,” there are a lot of expectations set for Aishwarya Rai in the “Mistress of Spices.” It has a great story line about magical spices but lacks practicality.

The introduction is very strong. It is about a group of girls based in India being taught in the power of spices by First Mother (Zohra Segal). The basic purpose of the education was for these girls to go into different corners of the world to help others with their magical powers.

So, out of all these girls, the story is based on none other than Tilo (Aishwarya Rai). She has a Spice Bazaar set up in Oakland, San Francisco where she has all kinds of spices and herbs for everyone who comes to the store. She has the ability to look into the past and future with the help of the magical spices and that’s how she helps anyone who passes through her door.

There are three rules that Tilo must obey in return of serving as a spice girl: she cannot use the spices for her own advantage, she must never leave her store, and she must never physically touch another human.

Everything seems to be good now as Tilo is happy helping others until an architect, Doug (Dylan McDermott) comes into the picture. He crashed his bike in front of her store. Being so helpful, she decided to take care of his wounds. Failing to comply with the rules set by the red spices, she opts to follow her heart.

The next thing we see on the door is Doug with flowers in his hand asking her on a date. Spices only stop Tilo and Doug cannot see what she is going through at the moment. She tried to resist him, but nothing works as the guy is so genuine and friendly. It comes to a point now when they accidentally touch each other and the spices are pretty angry.

It comes to a point now that she finally decides to go on a date with him not worrying about breaking rule # 2. She broke two rules set by spices and now those red peppers are ready to punish her in a way that the more she falls in love with Doug, the more her clients suffer. The only vision Tilo has is to help others and fulfill her desires at the same time. A question that she asked her self several times, is that too much to ask for? She has to pick one out of the two choices, either: let all the people she has helped suffer or lose Doug forever!

Will Tilo listen to her heart or her spices? Can there be any other way out? Will Doug ever find out her painful dilemma?

Overall, eBolly rates the movie 2.5 out of 5 for an attempt by a debutant director, Paul Mayeda Berges, to at least try and do something different. On the positive side, Santosh Sivan has done a great job with cinematography along with Amanda McArthur, Production Designer. On the negative side, the ending was so obvious where Tilo finally sets herself free from her limits. Aishwarya Rai and Dylan McDermott put in their best efforts to save the movie, but there was enough space in the script for a big moment.