Touch of Pink

This is one major cornball of a movie. Alim (Jimi Mistry), a gay Indian man living in London, tries to remain in the closet when his mother (Suleka Mathew) drops in for a visit. To deal with his troubles and mother anxiety, he relies on Cary Grant (Kyle MacLachlan), who offers him fatherly advice as his imaginary friend. A bit like Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam, where Woody was mentored by the ghost of Humphrey Bogart, but the movie-star mentor gimmick doesn’t work this time. MacLachlan is not at all convincing as Grant, and the film’s usage of an imaginary friend feels like a desperate attempt to make a run-of-the-mill soap opera unique. Jimi Mistry can’t act for beans, with some of his emoting so forced that it disrupts the picture even more than the stupid Cary Grant device. What makes this a real shame is that Mathew exhibits major charm, with portions of her performance quite moving. When writer-director Ian Iqbal Rashid allows her to rise above the standard dominating-mother routine, Mathew shines and makes moments of the picture well worth watching.