Mistress of Spices
The movie tells a realist tale about an enchanting Indian orphan who has leaned to harness the magical properties of spices. She becomes the Mistress of Spices and is sent to the Spice Bazaar in San Francisco, with the mission of following three basic rules: help her clients to accomplish their desires with the spices, but never hers; never leave the store; and never be touched in the skin.
1966
26 October 1961, Waterbury, Connecticut, USA
7 March 1955, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India
12 October 1994, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England, UK
December 25, 1968
1 November 1973, Mangalore, Karnataka, India
21 February 1967, Kenya
27 April 1912, Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
1977, Bombay, India
19 February 1974, London, England, UK
1 September 1970, Madras, Tamil Nadu, India
22 August 1967, Islington, London, England, UK
4 May 1960, Harrow, Middlesex, England, UK
July 28, 2006
Emphasizes the pleasures of scent, taste and touch to a remarkably tantalizing degree.February 11, 2007
...the film abandons logic and plausibility to such a degree that it quickly becomes impossible to overlook the more fantastical elements...July 28, 2006
It's acted with the artificiality of an After School special, the one-note brooding of McDermott especially, and with the endless monologues, the script descends into endless, boring narrative exposition.July 28, 2006
About all that can be said about The Mistress of Spices is that actress Rai manages to retain a straight face while uttering some of the most risible dialogue ever heard in a supposedly serious drama.May 04, 2006
Imagine Like Water for Chocolate without the passion. Such is the premise of Mistress of Spices, Paul Mayeda Berges's film-directing debut.May 06, 2006
Magic and realism just don't belong together here.September 21, 2005
Despite the ethereal presence of Aishwarya Rai in the title role, unquestionably one of the most beautiful women on the planet, this savory dose of magic realism goes off almost from the start.April 25, 2006
Beautiful but lifeless, poetic but unelevated.