Mira Nair (India)
Managing her hand-held camera and her ensemble cast with equal dexterity, shifting the tone effortlessly from comic to dramatic and back again, director Mira Nair has fashioned an amiable tribute to the enduring power of familial love. In the upper-class India of cellphones and e-mail, an extended clan gathers for a massive wedding, whereupon the plot splinters off onto separate tangents all neatly controlled by Nair's deft touch. The characters speak in a democratic mix of Hindi and English, and the movie displays a similar balance - the rituals of the wedding ceremony, the song and the dance, add a colourful texture to the multiple storylines. The result is a genial marriage of Western ironies and Eastern melodrama - Robert Altman meets Bollywood. - R.G.

(Tues. Sept. 11, 6:30 p.m., RTH; Wed. Sept. 12, 10 a.m., Uptown 1)