Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

MartinHafer Aishwarya Rai is a gorgeous woman and one of my favorite actresses. Having seen her in quite a few films already, I was excited to see "Mistress of Spices". Unfortunately, while Miss Rai and Dylan McDermott do a lovely job and the direction is fine, I felt the story itself was a bit of a letdown. Whether or not you'll struggle with the plot depends a lot on you and your feelings about mysticism and spices. Frankly, I found this to be very problematic.The film finds Rai in San Francisco running a spice shop. However, she is one strange lady, as she has both the ability to foresee the future AND use spices in an almost magical manner. However, she believes that these skills depend on her obeying some very rigid and bizarre rules. First, she cannot ever leave the shop! Second, she cannot touch people nor let them touch her. Third, she must only use these powers to help others and never to help herself. As for herself, her needs are completely irrelevant and she has a profound obligation to her clients and not herself. This naturally makes for a very lonely life, though she only seems to notice this when she meets McDermott--then the emptiness of her existence and longing for more becomes apparent.As I said above, I didn't like the mystical angle and this limited my ability to get into the plot. It's a shame, as the film was quite romantic and lovely to watch--it just, unfortunately, made little sense and seemed chock full of 'mumbo-jumbo'. I guess I am just too scientifically-minded to let myself go on this one.This is a case of a movie that looked great but just was sunk by a silly and impossible to believe plot.

jez Let's begin with...the good things, shall we? The cinematography, art direction... it's OK. Visually, I think this movie has succeeded in creating a modern showing and respect for traditions. Beautifully done there, I promise you that your eyes will have a feast on all the spices. That's about all I can say. The characters are confusing, questionable, unrealistic... The whole storyline and concept is magical, mystical and mysterious though it succeeded in being unconvincing. I mean, my favorite movies are Memoirs of a Geisha and Big Fish; all these stories have beautiful story lines, images, fantasies etc. "Mistress of Spices" failed right from the beginning. Overflooded with voice overs, over explained and overdescripted with unnecessary dialogue. I thought it killed the beautiful images seen on screen. Wise words and inspiring lines were thrown casually at inappropriate times. Everything was predictable, foolish and very flat. I feel so terrible for every potentially-good movie I see that turns out to be a flop.

rentalife Magical realism requires a deft directorial hand and a great screenplay that can present you with the absurd but still make you believe it. The Mistress of Spices had neither.First of all, the lead performances were OK. In Aishwarya's case I expected much worse, based on what I'd seen from her past roles. Here she played a woman reluctant to embrace love and it turned out believable. Dylan, already known to be a competent actor, delivered the occasional smoldering look necessary to convey "I'm falling in love."It was the poor treatment of the supporting characters that made this movie almost atrocious. The good-natured cab-driver's first scene seemed completely unbelievable because of the bad acting. The young Sikh teenager's transformation from dutiful son to gold-chained gangbanger was unintentionally hilarious, calling on caricatures rather than character development. And whoever fixed his turban needs to be fired. The grandfather's needling concern for his granddaughter's love life reeked of "Bend it Like Beckham" with the over-the-top parental figures nagging their children into the arms of non-Indians. The problem is, that while all these undeveloped 2-D characters would have been great in BILB, they ruined the atmosphere that the audience needed to believe in Tilo's magic. If you aren't grounded in the reality of the movie's world, then the "magic" part isn't special. The use of voice-over for Tilo's thoughts may have been necessary so that the audience could know about the different spices, but it just did not feel right. It indicated that the screenwriter never completely transcribed the story for the big screen. Inner voice works for books. Not as much for movies. The rules that Tilo lived by also came across as hokey and impractical for a store-owner in California. The fact that none of her customers, even traditional Indians, knew of her true nature kept the stakes low. At the very least, if there were people helping her stay inside the store and truly appreciative of her mystical skills (or truly dependent on them) then her conflict would have made some kind of sense.Now to SPOILERS: The blazing speed of the relationship fixes is mind-boggling. Tilo meets Haroun's neighbor, a woman who has barely spoken to Haroun. Pretty much the next day, Tilo is handing Haroun a wedding gift. Give it a little time please? The Sikh gangbanger suddenly agrees to take martial arts lessons rather than fire off that gun with that DANGEROUS GANG he just joined yesterday. Roundhouse kicks don't stop bullets! Doug's girlfriend suddenly shows up in Tilo's Indian spice store so she can find out how to cook for him. Then when she finds out that Doug loves someone else, she's just happy for him?They put way too much makeup on Aishwarya, who was meant to be playing the role of an unassuming natural beauty who supposedly couldn't leave her store or have romance. Tone it down a little bit so that when you finally have that big makeover scene, there's a real reason to be impressed! Strangest of all was Doug's back story about his estranged mother. It was so completely irrelevant. With such mystical tension and drama leading up to his deep dark secret, I am still left wondering :So your great grandpa gave you a magic feather...and???But the colors were pretty.

covduo2 Maybe I don't know enough about how spices are revered in Indian culture, I felt it did not make me that interested in the spice thing - except that I love Indian cooking! However, after watching Chocolat, I wanted to know a lot more about the Mayan heritage of chocolate and about the folklore behind the 'magic' - the film just inspired that romantic imagery and magic feeling about both Vianne and the chocolate.This film did not inspire very much and I think, considering the premise, could have done a lot more! I don't think Dylan McDermott was the right guy because it was never convincing that she was THAT interested in him to break any rules. I wouldn't have broken any rules for him! :) He just wasn't very charming and the part about his so-called Native American history was almost gratuitous and very unconvincing.Uninspiring and unconvincing...that's how I summarise this film. Nice idea though, just got in the wrong hands for carrying it out, I think.