Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Tockinit not horrible nor great

Steineded How sad is this?

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

MartinHafer Aishwarya Rai is a gorgeous woman and one of my favorite actresses. Having seen her in quite a few films already, I was excited to see "Mistress of Spices". Unfortunately, while Miss Rai and Dylan McDermott do a lovely job and the direction is fine, I felt the story itself was a bit of a letdown. Whether or not you'll struggle with the plot depends a lot on you and your feelings about mysticism and spices. Frankly, I found this to be very problematic.The film finds Rai in San Francisco running a spice shop. However, she is one strange lady, as she has both the ability to foresee the future AND use spices in an almost magical manner. However, she believes that these skills depend on her obeying some very rigid and bizarre rules. First, she cannot ever leave the shop! Second, she cannot touch people nor let them touch her. Third, she must only use these powers to help others and never to help herself. As for herself, her needs are completely irrelevant and she has a profound obligation to her clients and not herself. This naturally makes for a very lonely life, though she only seems to notice this when she meets McDermott--then the emptiness of her existence and longing for more becomes apparent.As I said above, I didn't like the mystical angle and this limited my ability to get into the plot. It's a shame, as the film was quite romantic and lovely to watch--it just, unfortunately, made little sense and seemed chock full of 'mumbo-jumbo'. I guess I am just too scientifically-minded to let myself go on this one.This is a case of a movie that looked great but just was sunk by a silly and impossible to believe plot.

saba2115 In spite of a very heavy schedule I took time off to watch this because I was curious to see how a film would handle the fantastical elements of the book.I am sorry to say this so baldly: the film borders on the absurd in some parts and proved to be a damp squib in others despite the (ridiculous)numerous shots of bright red hot chilli peppers in almost every frame.There was absolutely no chemistry between the two main characters,bunches of hot chilli peppers notwithstanding. I have no doubt Aishwarya has thousands of loyal fans who would defend her "acting talent" but again I failed to see any evidence of it in this movie.That the director is a novice, a wanna be, and could do with some training is a given. He simply did not know how to handle material so rich in possibilities. He lost every opportunity in the book to make the characters come alive. Even worse, he fails to lift the movie from being a mere depiction of absurd hocus pocus to one where magical elements would seem almost natural even in the humdrum life of a Western city.In the end, I felt impelled to laugh every time I saw Aish go up to the window to gaze out wordlessly with a bunch of red peppers hanging behind her.Perhaps the director believed he could ride on the bandwagon of success that all Indian things seem to have currently but he seems to have miscalculated his own ability to interpret a story such as this even with wife Gurinder standing by his side.

jez Let's begin with...the good things, shall we? The cinematography, art direction... it's OK. Visually, I think this movie has succeeded in creating a modern showing and respect for traditions. Beautifully done there, I promise you that your eyes will have a feast on all the spices. That's about all I can say. The characters are confusing, questionable, unrealistic... The whole storyline and concept is magical, mystical and mysterious though it succeeded in being unconvincing. I mean, my favorite movies are Memoirs of a Geisha and Big Fish; all these stories have beautiful story lines, images, fantasies etc. "Mistress of Spices" failed right from the beginning. Overflooded with voice overs, over explained and overdescripted with unnecessary dialogue. I thought it killed the beautiful images seen on screen. Wise words and inspiring lines were thrown casually at inappropriate times. Everything was predictable, foolish and very flat. I feel so terrible for every potentially-good movie I see that turns out to be a flop.

kingdio This is such a boring movie. Rai is basically imprisoned in the spice shop talking to spices in her head. All the exposition is either confusing flashbacks, or endless narrative from Rai. Must be extremely cheap to make a movie when all you have is one actor on one set endlessly narrating the story in her head. The most annoying part is probably some drummy Indian beat that plays endlessly every time McDermontt's character is around in combination with a close up chili peppers. It's the spices talking to Rai's character warning her he's trouble. Apparently the spices are some form of deities that control the fate of Rai's character. If she breaks the rules things happen. Horrible, horrible movie that only gets worse if you make it to the ending.