It's a Wonderful Afterlife   Starring: Shabana Azmi, Goldy Notay, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Sally Hawkins, and Zoë Wanamaker Icon Home Entertainment RRP: £15.99 ICON10210 Certificate: 15 Available 16 August 2010

Will you be able to stomach this killer comedy about a mum whose match-making efforts turn deadly when she tries to marry off her daughter. When Mrs. Sethi can no longer sit back and ignore the rudeness of families who refuse her daughter Roopi, she takes matters into her own hands the only way she knows... Suddenly a police hunt begins for a serial murderer who cooks a killer curry, but will her daughter find love before the police come knocking on their door...?

It's a Wonderful Afterlife is a, for the most part, enjoyable if somewhat flawed comedy.

The film revolves around Mrs Sethi (Shabana Azmi) and her desperation to marry off her rather plain looking daughter Roopi (Goldy Notay). Those that get in the way, or reject her daughter, are dispatched in various cooking related 'accidents'.

When the police smell something suspicious, they send in D.I. Raj Murthy (Sendhil Ramamurthy) to work undercover. Coincidentally Raj and Roopi are childhood friends and when the evidence leads to Roopi being the chief suspect, Raj is ordered to start dating her in order to find out more.

In the meantime Mrs Sethi is haunted by her victims who want her to commit suicide so that they can be reincarnated - they certainly don't want her being arrested as that will mean they too will have to spend time in prison with her.

As family comedies go, this is fun for the most part. It's only real towards the end of the film that everything starts to fall apart. At Linda/Geetali's (Sally Hawkins) wedding celebrations, for some unknown reason, the bride starts to display super powers - the end result being that everyone gets covered in food.

Extras include Cast and Crew Interviews (5 min, 01 sec); It's a Wonderful Premiere (1 min, 54 sec footage from the UK premiere); Deleted Scenes (35 min, 54 sec. There are a couple of interesting scenes here including the ghosts alerting Mrs Sethi to Raj's investigation and Roopi and Dev finding they have so much in common); and Theatrical Trailer (1 min, 43 sec).

So, for the most part, this is more hit than miss but it's one I'd recommend renting rather than buying.

6

Darren Rea