Title: Cliche drivel
Product review: I've watched all the Merchant Ivory productions of note including "A Room With a View", "Howard's End", and "Remains of the Day". Within the first half hour of "Cotton Mary", I couldn't believe the venerable house of Merchant Ivory let this one out the door! The usual subtlety, nuance and visual emotiveness of the actors is missing. Madhur Jaffrey offers an unimaginative performance as an Anglo-Indian stuck in the limbo of two cultures with a history of antagonism and admiration betweem them. Greta Scacchi barely drifts throught the entire movie as a naive and weak-willed wife. There is so much potential in the basic storyline but it is rendered into a soap-opera version of what should have been a poignant and bittersweet story.For those looking for a more sensitive treatment of the Anglo-Indian dilemma, look for "Jewel in the Crown", a multi-episode Grenada production which appeared in PBS in the late 1980s. It will soon be available on DVD. Don't waste your time with "Cotton Mary".
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