The Guru
***
Cinema Releases - August 23, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. USA-UK.
95 minutes. Directed by Daisy von Scherler Meyer. Written by Tracey Jackson.
Starring Jimi Mistry, Heather Graham, Marisa Tomei, Christine Baranski, Sanjeev
Bhaskar, Michael McKean.
One of the pleasures offered by "The Guru"
is that of watching a guy having to wing it, think on his feet, bluff
his way through situations and wince while he waits to see if the fibs are
going to pay off. But there's an essential sweetness to the movie, too; the
hero is a good man who wants to help people at the same as staying afloat.
We get a core of feel-good humour within the rhythm of a con comedy, allowing
director Daisy von Scherler Meyer to deliver crowd-pleasing warmth at the
same time as some genuinely sharp laughs.
Jimi Mistry plays Ramu Gupta, an Indian dance
instructor who crosses the oceans to New York City with dreams of peace,
comfort, stardom and spreading a simple message: "Dance is the language of
love!" Things don't quite work out immediately, and Mistry's first job involves
working on a porno shoot and failing to rise to the occasion. The experience
is not all bad, as the co-star, a wholesome Christian pornstar played by
Heather Graham, agrees to meet with Mistry and give him lessons on the wisdom
she has learned in the business.
Meanwhile, Mistry hooks up with a catering service
to help pay the bills, and one night ends up serving at an upper-crust party
where the Indian guru hired for entertainment has had a few too many drinks
backstage. Mistry steps in his place, showing the crowd his dance routines
and passing off Graham's porno tips as pearls of wisdom about being comfortable
with our naked bodies. He is embraced as a sex guru, and finds a number one
fan and willing agent in a spoiled little princess type played by Marisa
Tomei.
There is some light satire about how well Mistry's
'teachings' take off in high society, and it makes sense, because he drops
common sense phrases that really do end up helping people out. Tomei gets
a little too into the phenomenon for her own good (one night when she's really
getting carried away with words, Mistry has to drag her onto the bed and
inform her, "Guru sex is much faster than this!"). At the same time, of course,
we get a background plot in which Mistry starts falling for
Graham.
This is mainly a comedy about how Mistry fools
a lot of people, lies through his teeth, and means well throughout. He's
an actor of open face and clear intelligence, and makes a fun hero whether
bungling his way through fibs or tackling big emotional challenges. Alongside
him are two great women: Graham's character could have been too much of a
cliché, and Tomei could have played the faddy rich girl with too broad
a touch, but these are actresses of style, wit and grace in roles of energy
and joy; they play straight to our hearts, and reach them.
"The Guru" is snappy and sexy, borrowing vibrancy
from the texture of Bollywood. The palette is filled with bright colours,
and the screenplay features three big dance numbers -- two in Hindi, one
a daydream sequence that segues into "You're the One That I Want" from "Grease".
Obviously there's all the obligatory stuff whereby the hero must reject
materialism and tell his followers to think for themselves, and we get a
climax in which Mistry and Graham are left to realise that they're right
for each other just in the nick of time. But the film is so well made that
it's hard to get bored.
There's also has an exchange I've been waiting
to hear for years. One of Mistry's friends informs him, "You can't just stop
a wedding and steal the bride!" The response: "Sure I can! Don't you watch
American movies? It happens all the time."
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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