Denzel Washington’s career was turning red hot in 1991 when, after winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar two years prior for “Glory” and setting the screen ablaze as a lothario jazz trumpeter in “Mo’ Better Blues,” he shifted gears and took a role in Mira Nair’s ensemble romantic drama “Mississippi Masala.” The low-budget film centers on the plight of a Ugandan Indian family that, along with many other Asians, have been expelled from the country by dictator Idi Amin. While the patriarch of the family, Jay (Roshan Seth), is determined to move back to the Ugandan capital city of Kampala one day, his daughter Mina (Sarita Choudhury) is happy in the U.S. But when she begins dating a Black carpet cleaner named Demetrius (Washington), Jay’s mild discontent blows up into full-blown anger.
Nair’s film is a compelling depiction of racial antipathy between two minority communities that share much in common, given that they were both driven from their home countries. They each have to hustle to make ends meet because they live in a rigged capitalist society, but they’re at odds for reasons that make no rational sense. Jay and other Ugandan Indians dislike Black people because they associate them with the barbarity of Amin; meanwhile, the local Black community returns their enmity in kind. This forces Mina and Demetrius to keep their romance on the downlow, but the secret soon gets out. Can these star-crossed lovers ever find peace?
This was Nair’s follow-up to her Oscar-nominated “Salaam Bombay!,” which dramatized the lives of street children in the slums of the eponymous city. It was a change of pace for Nair, who critics and moviegoers were still getting to know, but she connected palpably, as evidenced by its Rotten Tomatoes score. And now, you can watch it on HBO Max!
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Mira Nair made Mississippi Masala before she made Zohran Mamdani
Denzel Washington as Demetrius takes a stroll on the beach with Sarita Choudhury as Mina in Mississippi Masala – The Samuel Goldwyn Company
“Mississippi Masala” currently holds a 92% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though it looks like its Popcornmeter score appears to have been bombed thanks to bigoted malcontents who inexplicably despise Nair’s political superstar son (and the new Mayor of New York City), Zohran Mamdani. If you’ve been charmed by Mamdani’s wit, energy, and compassion on the campaign trail, “Mississippi Masala” (which was released theatrically before his birth) will show you exactly where he came by these qualities.
/Film’s Leo Noboru Lima has declared Nair’s film one of the 15 best romance movies of all time, so you need to place this lovely, beautifully observed drama at or near the top of your streaming queue. It goes without saying that Washington is wildly magnetic as Demetrius, which is a fascinating contrast with the somewhat awkward Choudhury. They are so very in love, but everyone in their world wants to tear them apart. This is a first-rate drama that will linger in your memory long after you’ve watched it.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.