大象传媒

In Northern India, the old-fashioned grandmother of an upper middle class Punjabi family is tearing her hair out. With daughter Uma (Rajeshwari Sachdev) and granddaughter Jaya (Neha Dubey) still unmarried, her long-held customs and insistence on traditional gender roles are being increasingly undermined. While Uma is rejected by suitors because of her asthma, modern girl Jaya insists on finding a man who will treat her as an equal. Subversive stuff The Perfect Husband may be, but it's still cheesy Bollywood fare.

One of the more wince-worthy aspects of this Indian romantic comedy (aside from the hideous disco theme tune which substitutes the phrase "Husband!" for Donna Summer's Hot Stuff!) is the sight of grandmother confiding in her unconscious bed-ridden husband. So terrified of widowhood and the resultant loss of status, she's kept him on life support for 14 years. It's gutsy little touches like these that elevate Perfect Husband from the familiar all-singing all-dancing Bollywood template (and at 110 minutes, around one-third the length of the standard marathon) - but only just.

"THERE'S SO MUCH FROTH AND DISMAL DIALOGUE"

Trying to drag commercial Indian cinema into the 21st century, debut director Prriya Singh Paul has attempted to have her cake and eat it, with somewhat indigestible results. The ultimate effect, where Hanif Kureishi meets John Hughes in a cultural demolition derby, resembles nothing so much as Ben Elton's self-conscious shoehorning of a "liddle bit of politics" into his stand-up act.

In its favour it's nicely played, from Dubey in particular as the headstrong, career-minded Jaya, while the hypocrisy of India's matchmaking rituals are successfully tackled during a comically tragic scene in which the formalities of arranged marriage take on all the trappings of speed-dating. But elsewhere, there's so much froth, and dialogue so dismal, you're forced to impose your own socio-political spin onto proceedings, just to make it more interesting.

In Hindi with English subtitles.