Two for One ...

... of the Orange variety tonight - me and Mrs Smiffy gave Gurinder Chadha's "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" a go down at the Ashton Multiplex flea pit. Having done one review this week ... why not another ??

Overall impression was ... rather weak. A bit of a muddle between humour, horror and romance with a plot (?) that didn't really go anywhere. If you're going to cast Sanjeev Bhaskar - give him some dialogue (he was sadly underused with very few funny bits). Maybe I missed some of the jokes - there were certainly some Indian people in the audience laughing at times when I wasn't. A few nice "rip offs" mind - exploding stomach a la "Alien", the final scene was reminiscent of "Ghost", and the lengthy "Carrie" - type scene at the party was very good indeed. I'll be honest - until the credits came up at the end, I thought it was Maureen Lipman playing Mrs Goldstein - never thought it would be Zoe Wanamaker !!

So ... harmless fun I guess - no doubt people will try to compare it with Chadha's other real biggie "Bend It Like Beckham" - it's certainly not a patch on that film. Would I recommend it ? Well on a "2 for 1" night - maybe ...
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