The kind of girl mothers like . . .

Director: Homi Adajania
Cinema: Rainbow town
Age restriction: Adults only
The review of a film made in and about a country little known to the reviewer is likely to contain many puzzles.
In the case of the film “Cocktail,” made in India only three months ago, it would certainly be uncalled for to assume that sexual licence and liberty has come to an Asian country always known for its reverence for the maintenance of the old ways.
On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that the film industry has also been a significant factor in leading a people a culture, a country, down roads little imagined.
With the film “Cocktail” the audience is led down a road containing the implicit rather than explicit side of the libertinism and openness which have for at least a decade been enjoyed if that’s the right word by American and European audiences.
At the film’s opening we meet Meera who is absolutely gorgeous executing a plan which will allow her to evade a disappointing relationship. She is going off to England to embark on a totally new life.
On the plane she is seated next to a stranger, Naudal, who is obnoxious in the overt demonstration of his lust for her? Are we, the audience, then, to be put off by the plot’s unrolling of their coincidental meeting later on London’s streets? Naudal is returning to England from a brief visit to family in India to rejoin his fiancée Veronica.
The plot requires the audience to accept that Meera is now staying with Veronica, who had formerly been a total stranger to her.
It will become apparent to any discerning member of the audience that this plot of two girls and one guy is ancillary to the moviemaker’s real intention which is to show off to the audience the most gaudy aspect of London night life. And I’m not complaining.
Saving the members of the film’s audience the cost and difficulty of spending a couple of weeks with London’s night life, the film is recommended to all of us stay at homes who resent the fact that so little opportunity to travel is available to us.