fajrdrako | Bollywood/Hollywood

Didn't I say just yesterday that I avoided watching comedies? It took me less than 24 hours to prove myself a liar. Tonight I watched "Bollywood/Hollywood", a romantic comedy about a Hindu family in Toronto.

I enjoyed every minute. It was sexy and smart and funny, from the cute beleaguered hero to his drag queen chauffeur, his Shakespeare-quoting Grandma-ji and his camera-toting little brother Govind who's being bullied at his expensive school. The plot: fibre-optic Toronto millionaire Rahul Seth (played by Rahul Khanna) is being pressured by his family to marry so he pretends to be engaged to a girl who tried to pick him up in a bar (Lisa Ray)- smart, bright, unconventional, and she can pass for Indian. He thinks she's a whore as well as a philosopher; he learns something about snobbery and love. Is she what she appears to be? Illusions are revealed, assumptions overturned. Toronto scenery, clever multicultural jokes, and a sense of style.

For all it was about a family from India, the movie felt (to me) as Canadian as, say, "Men With Brooms". There was a Canadian outlook to it all, to the style of humour and the juxtaposition of the modern and the old-word traditional. It was Canadian in its jovial lack of pretentiousness and its attitude to racial issues. It was Canadian in its asides and its easy flow and its laid-back manner. There were fools, but no villains, and the message, if there was one, was of tolerance.