Nina’s Heavenly Delights

Pratibha Pamar (2006)

United Kingdom

Genre: Comedy/Drama/Romance

In the sentimental foodie comedy Nina's Heavenly Delights, feisty young Indian heroine Nina Shah, who fled to London from an arranged marriage, returns to Glasgow for the funeral of her beloved father. Trying to hang on to the Taj Mahal, the family's debt-ridden restaurant, she enters the televised Best of the West curry competition, her chief rival being the posher Jewel in the Crown eaterie owned by smooth Art Malik.

Along the way, she slides into a lesbian affair with a beautiful Scots girl and fellow cook. (The film might well have been called 'My Beautiful Balti House'.) But should they make their love public? Nina's dad had told her that in life as in the kitchen, 'you must always follow your heart', and she's shown the way by her brother, her gay confidant, her sister and her mother who suddenly and happily confess to secret loves and clandestine activities. Not since the last major amnesty in Ulster have so many people come out at the same time.

(Summary: Philip French, The Observer, 1 October 2006)

Film review by David Thom

Keywords: Queer diaspora; women's friendship and romance; food

Posted by Daniela Berghahn on 21 Jan 2008 •

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