[Ashima]'s qualifications for marriage seem minimal: "She likes to cook, and she can knit well," boasts one relative to the prospective husband's family. She's also beautiful and can recite a little of Wordsworth's "Daffodils." As for the awkward and funny-looking [Ashoke], who would guess that he will ripen into a loving, compassionate husband and father?

The film's focus has now shifted away from the parents to the son, as he looks for love, first with the clueless WASP Maxine (Jacinda Barrett), who calls Ashoke and Ashima by their first names on first meeting them and can't resist holding [Nikhil]'s hand at dinner, though she's been warned that that's not appropriate in this conservative Bengali family.

The older generation isn't totally left behind; continuity and tradition, after all, are among the film's themes. There's continuity also in the images of New York and Calcutta, as each city's rivers, bridges and trains mirror the other's. The senior Guangulis belong in both places and in neither; it's the immigrant's perennial dilemma.

Motion pictures