Aishwarya Rai is a gorgeous woman and one of my favorite actresses. Having seen her in quite a few films already, I was excited to see "Mistress of Spices". Unfortunately, while Miss Rai and Dylan McDermott do a lovely job and the direction is fine, I felt the story itself was a bit of a letdown. Whether or not you'll struggle with the plot depends a lot on you and your feelings about mysticism and spices. Frankly, I found this to be very problematic.The film finds Rai in San Francisco running a spice shop. However, she is one strange lady, as she has both the ability to foresee the future AND use spices in an almost magical manner. However, she believes that these skills depend on her obeying some very rigid and bizarre rules. First, she cannot ever leave the shop! Second, she cannot touch people nor let them touch her. Third, she must only use these powers to help others and never to help herself. As for herself, her needs are completely irrelevant and she has a profound obligation to her clients and not herself. This naturally makes for a very lonely life, though she only seems to notice this when she meets McDermott--then the emptiness of her existence and longing for more becomes apparent.As I said above, I didn't like the mystical angle and this limited my ability to get into the plot. It's a shame, as the film was quite romantic and lovely to watch--it just, unfortunately, made little sense and seemed chock full of 'mumbo-jumbo'. I guess I am just too scientifically-minded to let myself go on this one.This is a case of a movie that looked great but just was sunk by a silly and impossible to believe plot.

This is such a boring movie. Rai is basically imprisoned in the spice shop talking to spices in her head. All the exposition is either confusing flashbacks, or endless narrative from Rai. Must be extremely cheap to make a movie when all you have is one actor on one set endlessly narrating the story in her head. The most annoying part is probably some drummy Indian beat that plays endlessly every time McDermontt's character is around in combination with a close up chili peppers. It's the spices talking to Rai's character warning her he's trouble. Apparently the spices are some form of deities that control the fate of Rai's character. If she breaks the rules things happen. Horrible, horrible movie that only gets worse if you make it to the ending.

THE MISTRESS OF SPICES has some of the most beautiful use of color and texture in the form a magical Spice Bazaar that has graced a DVD. It also has as its protagonist the very beautiful Aishwarya Rai and the love interest of the always-reliable Dylan McDermott. The story was created and directed by Paul Mayeda Berges (with help from Gurinder Chada) who has given us such fine films as "Paris, je t'aime', 'Bride & Prejudice' and 'Bend It Like Beckham'. So the question arises as to why this film just doesn't quite make it: the reason may be the tough marriage of fantasy with reality, assigning more importance to dialog between the Mistress and the spices than to the development of storyline.Tilo (the ravishingly beautiful Aishwarya Rai) was taken in as a child by a spiritually inclined First Mother (Zohra Sehgal) who trains young girls the mysteries of spices - their magic, their meaning and their rigid life style imposed on the developing Mistresses. Those who gain the secrets of the spices are sent into the world, warned never to use the magic for them selves, never to touch human skin, and never to leave the shops where their spices are shared to help mankind. Tilo moves to the Bay Area and does good deeds for her customers until she meets Doug (Dylan McDermott) who needs her care after a motorcycle accident. They touch, their eyes speak of mutual desire and Tilo is thrown into conflict of being a mistress of spices or of having a love life. How situations and destiny work through the story is the meager line of the tale, the majority of the script is Tilo communicating with her spices!The cast contains some fine character actors such as Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Caroline Chikezie, Anupam Kher, and of course Zohra Sehgal. And there is enough statement about immigrant status in America to keep the story topical. THE MISTRESS OF SPICES entertains and that is a pleasure. Just don't expect a film on the level of director Paul Mayeda Berges' other works. Grady Harp

there certainly was zeeeero chemistry between the two leads but i don't think it was due to the lack of "smootching", ash and shahrukh had chemistry in devdas and everyone knows they didn't kiss, so i rather blame the actors in MOS who obviously were very uncomfortable with each other. ASH disappointed me in this flick, going through her filmography feels like being on a roller-coaster, sometimes she'll give an amazing performance (like in devdas or khakee) and at other times (like in MOS) she'll just hammer her lines and look as blank as a board that's just been erased.I won't even get started on that Mcdermott guy, Geez! display some emotion man!! that scene when they're in bed together felt like watching the weather channel, no scratch that, it felt like watching my grandma cutting her toenails while watching the weather channel. what was the director thinking?? Gosh, i remember complaining about the lack of fire in Bride and Prejudice, well, this movie makes B&P look like the new Gone with the Wind.