Mistress of Spices: B+
I am deeply torn about this film. Mistress of Spices had the potential to be a great food movie like "Chocolat" or "Like Water for Chocolate". It is visually rich and gorgeous to look at, from the spices, the sets, the scenery and the people. This is an absolutely beautiful film. And I like the idea of the plot: a secret order of women, dispatched across the globe, using the power of spices to help and heal (physically and spiritually) others.
But the writing was really poor .. the dialogue was stilted and unbelievable. It really gave the actors nothing to work with ... so there was a lot of meaningful LOOKING at each other, but not a lot of great interaction. Which is really too bad. Also, Mistress of Spices had some really weird editing. I was TENSE through this whole movie .. there were lots of jarring sounds and fast cuts. Was it a gun shot or a bus backfiring? The store bell rang -- friend or foe? This edginess seemed out of place in a romantic feel-good movie.
So .. am deeply ambivalent. It's so visually compelling, but it just doesn't deliver beyond the look of it.