India's and Indian people's image in the world is very religious and nonsecular. For many foreigners the arranged marriages, which represent the majority in India, seem to be a very old fashioned way of living. However, there are lots of - so called - "love marriages", too. Even though the trend is obviously towards them, Indians are not forgetting about their long-standing traditions as well.
The movie "Monsoon Wedding" from 2001 combines both of these flavors and shows in a very unique way that arranged marriages are not as obsolete and nonsecular as they might look like at the first view. The characters, the plot and nearly everything else just indicate quite the opposite.
At the beginning of the movie this isn't obvious at all though, because one of the main characters, Aditi Verma, who is supposed to marry an Indian computer expert from USA, is between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand she just can't accept the suggestion of her parents to marry someone she has never met before, but on the other hand she isn't self-confident enough to talk with them about it or even reject it.
Aside from this Aditi has a love affair with a famous TV producer, who she works for. Although she is aware of the fact, that he is married, she falls in love with him and strongly believes in his promises that he will get divorced from his wife soon. Nearly until the very end of the movie she keeps this belief.
Aditi doesn't say a word about this to her family, in order not to disappoint them in any way. She apparently doesn't want them to lose their faith in her. Hence she decides to play the role of the well-behaved daughter, who is willing to follow the orders and plans of her parents, without having a clear idea of what to do, when the day of the marriage has come.
Vasundhara Das, the actress of Aditi Verma, plays her role very authentically. She is so good at it, that you could say that she has never done something else than getting married by force, lol.
But it's not only her, who perfectly fits in the role of the character. Vijay Raaz, who is in charge of the role of the wedding-organizer P.K. Dubey, has probably attained cult status after this movie. As a person with not such a good looking outer appearance, he always turns the dramatic and romantic mood of the movie into comical situations - just by showing off his beautiful smile with his well-brushed teeth.
As a whole the movie can be seen as a romance with an undertone of comedy. It has got a perfect mix of foreign and domestic culture and gives clearly an impression of what the middle class of India is like. Furthermore it deals with very important subjects like sexual abuse, too.
In conclusion to all of these you can say that "Monsoon Wedding" is a movie that is absolutely worth watching - and not only for India-lovers.