Often after a movie, I will sit to myself and think, "Was there anything redeeming at all about that movie, or did I just lose 2 hours of my life that I'll never get back?" In this case, it was the latter.<br /><br />Despite commendable acting from the films actresses, Harvey Keitel looks embarrassingly like an amateur in a high school drama. Although the plot has potential, the movie has the maturity of a 7th grader making farting sounds under his armpit. If only the movie was animated, it would be a perfect Simpsons satire of the stereotypical bad movie.<br /><br />Another major problem with the film is that it tries to mix humor with seriously sad problems. Imagine the success of a comedy based on 9/11 and you get the picture. Obvious attempts at humor completely fail in canned, painfully predictable sequences directed with the subtlety of a mack truck. Add to this the fact that the director clearly cannot differentiate between what to shoot and what not to shoot.<br /><br />Other various problems were the irrelevant and distracting Neil Diamond soundtrack, the irritating, obstructed camera shots somehow meant to be creative I guess, and the token gay characters who have nothing to do with the plot. Although the movie supposedly took place in Australia, only one person actually had an Australian accent, the rest of them being vaguely British which is confusing during the entire story. The movie culminates in a transsexual, surrealistic fantasia which can only be described as the work of a deviant, hallucinating pervert.<br /><br />If nothing else, this film realistically demonstrates why you would never want to go to India. And really the only way I can figure that it came about is that Kate Winslett must have owed a debt to the teenage son of some guy who got her career going. Unfortunately, someone gave him a camera.