Nina's Heavenly Delights

It seems not a year passes without a new British Asian feature film coming to the market, with varying degrees of success. Bend it Like Beckham and East is East are probably the best-known, along with My Beautiful Laundrette. These are all films about Indians and Pakistanis living and surviving in Britain, rather than films about the Raj, like Passage to India, with the British trying to survive in India. Let's face it, without its Asian population Britons would probably still be unable to buy bread and milk after five o'clock, or get a decent takeaway meal. Although some people's perceptions are that Indians only run corner shops or curry restaurants is completely misguided, it is a stereotype that Nina's Heavenly Delights plays on quite well.

Nina (Shelley Conn) is the prodigal daughter of a Glasgow Indian restaurant owner, who returns from London to her home for her father's funeral, only to find he has used his beloved family business, The New Taj, as collateral for a bet, which he lost. Nina also discovers that her father had entered the restaurant into the Best of the West Curry Competition, hoping to win the award for the third time in a row, but the new half-owner of the restaurant, Lisa (Laura Fraser) isn't immediately convinced about entering the competition until Nina persuades her it will increase the restaurant's value. And so the pair prepare for the competition with the help of family and friends.


The movie is filled with plenty of colourful characters that show the diversity of the British Asian community, except they are more caricatures and stereotypes than real people - the gay friend (Ronny Jhutti), the understanding mum (Veena Sood), the jolly aunty (Elaine C Smith), the suave adversary (Art Malik), the savvy, rebellious little sister (Zoe Henretty) – but this doesn't really matter because most Bollywood films have the same sorts of characters, and ultimately this is a British version of real Indian, much like the curries.


The whole food part is my biggest complaint about the movie. It is the central conceit of the film and a vital part of the story and even though it is supposed to be a fantasy it does need some grounding in reality to help with the all-important suspension of disbelief. Maybe I am just being hypercritical but many of the cooking sequences lacked authenticity. For a start the two girls never wore proper kitchen apparel, never mind aprons. Cooking Indian food without an apron is a recipe for disaster, especially working with spices. And speaking of spices, an award-winning restaurant would use freshly ground spices, not keep large plastic jars of "Madras Curry Powder" on the work bench. Non-stick aluminium pans on electric hobs – definitely not on. And for a diet that is primarily vegetarian the menus were decidedly non-veg. But, like I said, I am just being picky.

Culinary disasters aside, the movie has some nice moments of comedy and some emotional ones too, which do tend towards sentimental, but Bollywood is never afraid to reduce its audiences to tears, and this movie manages to squeeze in a few misty moments of its own. Yes, it is predictable and clichéd but it is entertaining and will especially appeal to British Asians and even a wider general audience. Just like the local curries, it is Bollywood adapted to cater for the British palate.

The director, Pratibha Parmar, and her crew have created some lush imagery to enhance the fairytale nature of the story, which is even more impressive given it was shot on HD video. The music is a good mixture of Bollywood classics and contemporary British songs, including an interesting remix of the Nolan Sisters, which enhances the cross-cultural references.

Overall, it is a fun piece of undemanding light entertainment, but not really one for younger kids, in spite of its PG rating - unless you are prepared to explain why the two lead actresses are putting their tongues in each other's mouths.

NINA'S HEAVENLY DELIGHTS is on general release from September 29.