It's A Wonderful Afterlife (12A)
Posted by Storm on Sun, 14 Nov 2010.
If you love Bend It like Beckham do not watch this film. Go on believing that Gurinder Chadha is a good director and that she makes insightful funny films; do not torture yourself with this hour and a half of no laughs and questionable morals.
It’s a Wonderful Afterlife centres around Rupy a ‘fat’ (and believe me I use the term loosely as she can only be a size 12) Indian girl who after one broken engagement has all but given up hope of finding a husband. Meanwhile her mother who is waiting for her daughter to marry so she can die in peace, but when people begin to insult her daughter she takes it upon herself to teach them a lesson by killing them with the help of several deadly Indian foods. But when she begins to be haunted by the ghosts of those she has killed she begins to realise she has made a terrible mistake.
Sounds hilarious right? Wrong.
If I could sum up boredom it would be in the form of this film, not funny, not scary (despite the promise of comic horror), and definitely not a good film. The moral of this story seems to be its fine to kill people who insult your daughter as long as it leads to her getting married to a person who is quite obviously out of her league. I also think there has been an over sight when it comes to the ghosts, they should be funny and sarcastic and hate the woman who killed them, instead they forgive her and try to find her daughter a husband. What!?! Did I miss something, I’m pretty sure if it was me I’d be a little annoyed about being dead and probably wouldn’t be in the forgiving mood!
So, so far I’ve found the ghosts are insanely forgiving, the fat girl isn’t fat and the mother is a frankly a freaky murderer who should be behind bars. Does this film have any redeeming features well....no.
It also includes a scene in which a completely human girl covered in mango chutney starts throwing things around with her mind, which is stupid, pointless, not funny and has no relevance to the story.
Here’s the main point Bend It Like Beckham is still a great film, Gurinder Chadha is no longer a good film maker, sorry to break the news.
2/10