Thruxomatic It is rare for what amounts to a simple love story to cover as much ground as this film ultimately does.There's a political layer, with the 1970s era unrest in Uganda being a primary driver and motivator for much of the other decisions made by the characters. There's a racial layer, with racial tension in Africa spilling over into reciprocal racial tension in Mississippi in turn. There's a layer for interpersonal relationships as well, with Demetrius and Meena's growing love and the estranged friendship with her father and his friend back in Uganda.Weaving all these layers together requires a very deft suite of actors and a very deft director and, for the most part, everyone is up to snuff. There are some very high quality acting performances indeed in this film.Ultimately, the film is about the first generation of an immigrant family struggling to come to grips with their diminished situation. Some members of this first generation embrace the change and attempt to adopt many of the idioms and customs of their new home, and the second generation most definitely does this, but the patriarch of the family struggles to accept that his life in Uganda is essentially gone. The entire film builds to a climax that ultimately has nothing to do with Demetrius and Meena's relationship.The real climax is the father's ultimately forced acceptance of his new situation. The interracial relationship is the driver, but the destination is purely internal for the family patriarch.A nod has to go to Denzel Washington for opting into this small-budget film of exceeding quality when his star was clearly on the rise and such films could easily have been deemed beneath him. Choudry is positively mesmerizing, and she steals many scenes with her subtle facial expressions and body language. Clearly, she was a gem that needed a better setting for her later career.I'd love to give a cast award, because the cast is almost univerally above average, which is very rare for a film. Some very bit parts become part of a larger tapestry that is very worth one's time to witness.

Vash Mira Nair is one of the best directors. Her movies are different and deep. I liked the concept behind this movie. It addresses prejudices in different cultures. This should have been a really good movie. It wasn't. What spoiled the movie for me was the choice of the female lead. Sarita Chowdhary could not possibly pass as the daughter of the two parents on the screen (played by Sharmila Tagore who was one of the top actresses of her era in Bollywood, and Roshan Seth). If you see their features, they are angular. Sarita has a completely different face- thick lips, flat nose, rectangular face, darker skin than both parents. She did not even look like an Indian. That killed the whole racial difference theme of the movie. In the beginning we see a young Meena about 9 years old, in tears when her parents decide to leave Uganda. They were basically forced to leave their home and their belongings behind. What was most painful to all three of them was losing their Ugandan friends. Meena loved her African friends, and it is not surprising that she is attracted to an African American after moving to the USA, much to the chagrin of the resident Indians.The end was touching, however, and lifted the movie quite a bit. When the father goes back to Uganda, which he considers his true home, and feels love toward an African baby, he realizes that color does not matter. That was the high point of the movie. He also realizes that his past home is no longer his home. So the beginning and the end of the movie are good. The in betweens are not as strong. The accent was an issue. If Meena (Sarita Chowdhary) spent several years in Uganda, then UK, before moving to the USA, why did she not have some British accent? The parents accents were Indian. If the father was born in Uganda, he should have had a different accent (not Indian).It's not clear what profession the father had in Uganda, why he chose Mississippi and not one of the northern states, why the daughter was uneducated. The lack of education is very un-Indian. Culturally Indians (even those who live in other countries) place very high value on education. There are too many deficiencies in the body of the movie, and for me watching Sarita Chowdhary as Sharmila Tagore's daughter was just too much. She spoiled the whole movie for me. It was too unrealistic, despite a very good idea behind the movie.

misshajarah I have watched this film over 10 times and i still enjoy watching it. it is a beautiful, romantic yet sad story of a young girl's life changing. she is at first lost in Mississippi but she finds hapinness again in Denzel Washington. I strongly recommend this film to people who may feel lost in new places in the world. As a young lady from Uganda i watch this film and remenisce about my childhood and leaving my home and coming to a new place in the United Kingdom. Mina is the only child therefore she's got no siblings to talk to about how she really feels although she is quite close to her parents. I think there's a sense of loneliness in the film and sadness. However there is also a lot of comedy in the film from Mina's friend's and the romance is beautiful. In the end love conquers all and Mina and Denzel decide to go away together to clean hotels... Aah Aah.

floriadarcy This movie suffered greatly from trying too hard. The attempted blend of romance, comedy, political commentary, and racial issues came across uneven and not particularly enlightening. A movie with these themes would seem to have great potential, but it was greatly hampered by an trite, unoriginal script ("Home is where the heart is, and my heart is with you" is its parting phrase) and dull, uninspired direction. Denzel Washington's acting is excellent, but even he cannot save this dull, insipid movie, hampered as he is by the above elements, not to mention a leading lady whose acting is only slightly better than that of Ruby Keeler in one of her worst big-budget movies. As Mina, Sarita Choudhury's acting is dull when it is meant to be sincere and completely unconvincing when trying to convey the true emotional anguish that her character supposedly feels when separated from her "true love," a man that I believe she has known less than a week. The racial issues the movie tries to raise (interracial relationships between people considered by "whites" to be "of color" and therefore the same) is an important one, as is the treatment of African-Indians in the latter half of the twentieth century, but many of the minor characters from both races are obviously based on some of the worst stereotypes of both races (Indian cheap motel owners and lazy black teenage boys) that I couldn't seem to muster any sympathy for them.The ending, where most movies would attempt to at least make clear their object, seems in this movie to be completely randomly chosen. After deciding to return to Mississippi from a trip to Sudan to try to reclaim his lost property, Mina's father Jay wanders out onto a street in Uganda to watch people dance, and then takes a completely random stranger's child from his parents' arms and continues to watch the dancing. My only guess is that they ran out of budget and decided to just stop the movie there. Overall, this movie is not really worth watching. If you want to study immigrant or minority experiences in America, do so with a more professional film.