Before the Rains
Language: English
Year: May 2008
Actors: Rahul Bose, Nandita Das, Linus Roache, Jennifer Ehle
Director: Santosh Sivan
Producer: Mark Burton
Music: Mark Kilian
Screenplay: Cathy Rabin 

When bimbos like Kareena Kapoor and Nayantara or buffoons like Abhishek Bachchan and Ajith Kumar show a faint spark of acting talent, we are startled.

When talented artistes like Nandita Das or Rahul Bose fail to live up to the standards they’ve led us to expect from them, we are saddened.

And saddened we were with Before the Rains, the new English film featuring Nandita Das, Rahul Bose and Linus Roache.Before the Rains has just had a limited release in the U.S. and is playing in few theaters across the country.

Faced with the choice this weekend between watching Jannat in North Brunswick (New Jersey) or Before the Rains in Philadelphia, it was really a Hobson’s choice for us - we opted instinctively for the latter having been exposed previously to the talents of both Nandita Das and Rahul Bose.

But Before the Rains fails at many levels.

The narrative is not gripping enough, the acting by the dramatis personae is less than impressive and the visual effects are nothing extraordinary except perhaps in a few stray frames.

Set in the lush green mountainside of Kerala in colonial India (1937, if you must know the exact date), Before the Rains is an effete story of romantic betrayal and its consequences.

Sajani (Nandita Das) is a maid in the home of an English planter Henry Moores (Linus Roache), who is building a road in the middle of the jungle.

But Sajani is more than just a maid to Moores (whose wife and son are in England): this young dark-skinned native - married and with a suspicious and violent husband in the village - also warms her fair-skinned master’s bed.

Sajani’s White master swears he loves her and Continue Reading…