Return to Rajapur

I have been to India 3 times for a total of 7 months and seen over 1000 films in the past 10 years. This film is a great piece of celluloid.

It captures a romantic view of Rajapur that is slightly saccharin but so enjoyably so! The acting is good and the plot full of romance well portrayed and drama well developed. The young Samantha (Kelli Garner) is, however, too bubbly and vapid which bothered me, but I was willing to overlook this for the brilliantly played scenes from 1988 with Manoj Bajpai (Jai Singh), the beautiful and enchanting Lynn Collins (Sara Reardon) and love-to-hate him handsome asshole Justin Theroux (Jeremy).

The plot device of flashback-intergenerational-intrigue works really well despite being over- used and this film is reminiscent of, perhaps, the English Patient.

It really is a fun, romantic, dramatic, entertaining film; it's not too deep, but very well produced, especially considering it was shot in 5 weeks!!! (So Anand said at the Tribeca Film Festival)... (although one underexposed low-contrast nighttime scene really bothered me).