By Puloma Mukherjee

On Failed Connections...

Arranged marriages, a twenty-two year old pressured, imminent daughter-in-law answerable to the would-be in-laws about everything from her clothes to her vacation plans, happy call center employees making more money than their families, strength of Indian family values - are all conventional American notions about Indian culture and people that proudly feature in Ashok Amritraj’s new production The Other End of the Line. The American counterpart of the screenplay by Tracey Jackson (screenplay writer of The Guru) is unfortunately also nothing new – the story of an angst-ridden Ivy League educated advertising professional stuck in a dissatisfying job and a loveless relationship, in search for answers to his life’s failings.

I feel like with that introduction, I have already told you the whole story!

What is lacking in the screenplay is somewhat revived by sincere performances by the actors, even if only to the extent of being an aspiring romantic comedy. In a script that does not demand much from even its relatively inexperienced protagonists, Shriya Saran (actress in several Telegu films as well as more recent Bollywood movies such as Aawarapan and Mission Istanbul) and Jesse Metcalfe (star of John Tucker must Die, also in Desperate Housewives) are quite charming in their respective roles.

Disarming, wide-eyed, romance-of-her-dreams hopeful Priya Sethi (played by Shriya Saran) is a call center employee for a credit card company, of which Granger Woodruff (played by Jesse Metcalfe) is a customer. Much to the delight of her accent trainer and American-culture-educationist at the call center, Priya has mastered the affected American accent and names of even slightly off-beat American TV stars. Fascinated by her client Mr. Woodruff and convinced that they have an innate connection, Priya decides to fly across the oceans to meet him under her call center operator identity of Jessica David (God knows how she thought she’d pull that one of). Disregarding her friend Shweta’s (played by Tara Sharma) words of caution about disloyal, lascivious American men and unbeknownst to her staunchly traditional father (played by Anupam Kher), our dreamy yet willful leading lady succeeds in her plans by landing a date with the cloyingly prototypical Granger Woodruff in a rather hasty sequence of events.

Despite several ineffective and misplaced song sequences (Pretty Woman etc.), Shriya Saran and Jesse Metcalfe’s chemistry is engaging and Saran is quite convincing as the lovely, intelligent Indian girl who manages to charm Metcalfe’s difficult hotelier boss. A hurried plot follows involving a surprise visit by distraught family members (no prizes for guessing whose family this might be!), deceit, disappointments in love and a characteristic American romantic comedy-esq last minute change of heart.

The Sethi family seems to change in composition throughout the movie with a few additional, mostly mute, characters emerging towards the end of the movie. Great actors like Anupam Kher and more elusive ones like Sushmita Mukherjee (Priya’s mother) are rendered completely incidental.

To those who like cross cultural romantic comedies, I am afraid this movie does not promise any of the characteristically funny innocence of My Big Fat Greek Wedding or the hilariously layered script of Two Days in Paris. The creative responsibility of filmmakers to present a fresh perspective to their audiences is by no means genre-limiting. By attempting to reinforce tired stereotypes I am afraid that The Other End of the Line will fail to connect, with both American and Indian audiences who will all be left rolling their eyes- either in apathy or in disdain.