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Romantic Compromise: review of Walkaway CONTACT US Shailja Gupta's directorial debut Walkaway follows four South Asian male friends (and their relationships) in New York City ABOUT US by Ada Tseng RECENT ARTICLES full list

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International Secret Manish Dayal and Pallavi Sharda in Walkaway Agents LA 2010: An Action-Packed Night Walkaway is a sweet romantic film that explores the up-and-downs of four couples at different stages of of Sneak Attacks courtship. Soham (Sanjeev Jhaveri) and Nidhi (Deepti Gupta) have been married for two years, long enough that lovey-dovey stares are rare, unexpected tragedies have shaken their foundation, and grudges have been Models, Music and developed. Shridhar (Samrat Chakrabarti) and Genevieve (Carrie Anne James) are newly engaged and planning Mingling: Audrey's their wedding, but their happiness is tested when both realize that they are giving up a lot of their own cultures - Night Out 2010 - Tamil vs. French -- to please the other. The cute Vinay (Manish Dayal) and the equally-cute Sia (Pallavi Sharda) are wholesomely looking for love, agreeing to be set up by their parents even though they don't endorse the traditional ideas of arranged marriage. And lastly, Darius (Manu Narayan) and Anu (Ami Sheth) 2010 are two young singles just looking to have some fun. Comic- Con: While the four lead male actors are either American or British (South Asians having grown up in New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and England), the characters they play in Walkaway are recent urban immigrants Overview who are successful in their work lives and comfortable in the New York social scenes, but retain deep roots in India -- even if it's just their mothers who are constantly calling them, video-chatting over Google Talk, or reminding them that it's about time for them to get married and/or have some babies. ARTICLE TOOLS

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Set during the recent financial crisis -- the four friends work together as investment bankers and are nervous about upcoming layoffs -- Walkaway showcases characters and relationships that embody modern, global Feature articles and videos, interactive graphics, daily news summaries, and provocative voices. sensibilities. Soham works as a stand-up comedian in his off-time, Shridhar has learned to speak fluent French after dating and falling in love with Genevieve, Anu thinks that being a thirty-something unmarried woman studying at Harvard would be just as good (if not better) than finding a husband, and they all have very open MORE APA ideas about sex and dating. At the same time, tradition remains important, insofar as their parents (and what's important to their parents) remain a priority. Sia is open to arranged marriage, not because she thinks that being single is terrible, but because she doesn't want her parents to worry about her. Nidhi cannot stand her in-laws, yet she knows she must visit them when she travels to Mumbai, otherwise it would be improper. Shridhar works overtime to please his mother (who's unhappy he's not marrying an Indian girl), whether it's pleading with Genevieve to provide her birthdate and time so their destiny can be evaluated or asking her to partake in a APA NEWSLETTER ceremony involving her marrying a pot so his mother doesn't fear the bad luck of Genevieve's horoscope. Subscribe to the APA Newsletter While there are moments of unoriginality in Walkaway difficult to avoid in the light-romantic-dramedy genre (a spin-the-bottle game causes an intoxicated player to make a dramatic scene, some requisite contemplations First name about how love sucks and some crying how you don't even know who you are anymore), writer/director Shailja Gupta is skilled at bringing out the complexities that arise when relationships mature, especially when family Last name politics become involved. She deftly illustrates how brash reactions to sensitive topics lead to misunderstandings -- how one person's general frustration can be read as a direct ultimatum to the person to whom they are venting, how Shridhar's small request can seem to Genevieve like he's putting her dignity at stake. Email address

Overall, the film is an exploration of relationships. While the characters abide by various, sometimes Sign In contradicting, philosophies on love and dating (at one point, the concept of fuck-buddies emerges as an endearing, oddly-healthy end to a relationship), Walkaway is a feel-good movie not because of whether the romantic entanglements work out or not, but because of the support that the friends have for each other. They egg each other on when necessary, listen when there is bad news, and cheer when things work out despite all obstacles. After watching Walkaway and its nightmarish portrayal of wedding planning, friends seem like a necessary support system when stress-inducing family members get involved.

Walkaway opens in major cities around the US on October 29. For more information, go to Walkaway's official website.

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Film Review: Walkaway Four first-generation Indian-American New Yorkers look for love, or try to hold onto it, in this Desi-loo production. Oct 29, 2010

-By Frank Lovece

For movie details, please click here. It's not exactly, as the marketing has it, "Sex and the City" with four Desi (first-generation Indian-Americans) guys. The patter isn't snappy, it's more drama than comedy and, let's face it, guys don't care that much about shoes. REVIEWS For all the unevenness of this admirably well- directed and well-edited first feature by a Desi filmmaker herself—a former IT professional Film Review: turned marketing manager for one film and Fair Game assistant script supervisor for another—Walkaway showcases a director who should move on to Brisk take on how bigger things. With a better writer. Valerie Plame Wilson and her Know right off that this isn't a Bollywood movie, neither in its production origins (New York City and not Mumbai) nor in its style (drama with comedy, not big romantic movie musical). Walkaway fits husband, diplomat Joe Wilson, react when her more into the well-trod cinema of immigrant-culture assimilation films. It's no Hester Street, Joan cover as a CIA spy is blown in the debate over Micklin Silver's classic turn-of-last-century tale of Lower East Side Jews, nor is it as technically slick the Iraq War. More » as such higher-budgeted indie fare as Mississippi Masala, which mini-major The Samuel Goldwyn Company distributed. But given her budgetary limitations, director, co-writer and co-editor Shailja Gupta has put together a pretty good reel with at least one scene as good anything you'd see in a Film Review: French art-house film. 127 Hours Gripping and One reason is that this scene features a standout, evidently French actress, Carrie Anne James, with virtually no films to her credit other than shorts and a role as "webcam girl" in Friends (With Benefits). surprisingly lively As Genevieve—the beautiful but wise-countenanced fiancée of business executive Shridhar (Samrat account of rock- Chakrabarti), a Tamil Brahmin who suddenly starts getting more and more traditional about the climber Aron Ralstons ordeal while trapped in a wedding rituals and fearful of his family propriety's back in India—she is fragile, tough and Utah canyon. James Franco excels in this virtual heartbreaking in the scene where the two of them finally confront what Shri is really about. one-man show. More » The others in this overly schematic quartet are three Wall Street guys (though New Yorkers will recognize their "office building" as a highly recognizable apartment house at Central Park West and Seventh Avenue). Darius (Manu Narayan) somehow finds time in Wall Streeters' typical 12-hour days More Reviews » to sing American standards at a classy cabaret at night. Vinay (Manish Dayal) is his wingman. They start dating fashion student Sia (Pallavi Sharda) and party girl Anu (Ami Sheth), respectively, while their unhappily married friend and colleague Soham (Sanjiv Jhaveri) lives resentfully and uneasily with his wife Nidhi (Deepti Gupta), neither of the two able to get past a family tragedy nor to reconcile their present lives with the family in the old country.

Assimilation tensions are universal, with Gupta setting them in the kind of magical movie Manhattan we all want to live in. The dialogue, unfortunately, is too often all on the surface, and staggeringly not Holiday at the movies: FJI previews end-of- year diversions and award contenders witty. And aside from shining moments here and there from her adequate Indian cast, the actors' Film Review: Paranormal Activity 2 rhythms too often feel a beat or two lagging. Speaking of cast, we should also mention that two of Film Review: Jackass 3D the guys and two of the women look far too similar—a familiar problem with indie-film casting that Film Review: Walkaway doesn't help the story unless it's Ingmar Bergman's Persona or Barbet Schroeder's Single White Cineplex introduced UltraAVX cinema concept Female.

But Gupta is a filmmaker to keep a watch for. Promising women directors don't often get much chance to stay in features—the talented Darnell Martin (I Like It Like That) and Rose Troche (Go Fish) went on to have careers directing television. That's certainly not a bad way to go by any means, but Gupta could go all the way. Save | E-mail | Print | Most Popular | RSS | Reprints

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CONTENT PREVIEW Newsday/Optimum Online® subscribers click here for full access Not a Newsday or Optimum Online® subscriber? Click here Angst a family tradition in 'Walkaway'

October 29, 2010 By FRANK LOVECE Special to Newsday

Assimilation isn't easy - parents meddle in your love life and you must forgive if you want to move on. popular stories

Be you first-generation Jewish-, Italian- or, as here, Indian-American, some things are universal and Most-read stories Most-viewed photos even well-worn - including family-tradition angst. The trick to keeping it fresh is in the specifics of the particular culture, which help make this modest romantic drama more interesting... tv Mary Tyler Moore to guest star in Betty White newsday.com is now available at no charge to Newsday and Optimum Online® comedy subscribers. To continue reading, please log in or register now.

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“Walkaway,” a breezily schematic Indian movie about relationships RECOMMEND More Theaters Near You » in the big city — New York, that is — feels like a hybrid: a little TWITTER

Bollywood, a lot American indie from the let’s-talk-about-romance SIGN IN TO E- division. The film mostly eschews the pumped-up emotionalism of MAIL Hindi movies and very nearly dispenses with Hindi too. (English is PRINT mostly spoken here, with smatterings of French, Tamil and, yes, REPRINTS

Hindi.) SHARE

A kind of “Vinay Getting Married,” the movie follows the fortunes of four well-off male friends in various stages of matrimonial entanglement. When Vinay (Manish Dayal) meets Sia (Pallavi Sharda), it’s not by chance but by matchmaking arrangement. (Their first date looks like any old Internet date.) The two hit it off and decide to wed.

Shree (Samrat Chakrabarti) has made a love match but faces culture-clash problems planning an Indian wedding to a Frenchwoman (Carrie Anne James). Soham (Sanjiv Jhaveri) contends with an unhappy wife (Deepti Gupta in the film’s most affecting performance). And the group’s swinger, Darius (Manu Narayan), finds his female Personal Tech E-Mail counterpart. Sign up for David Pogue's exclusive column, sent every Thursday.

What narrative contrivance can’t put asunder, meddlesome parents, tucked not so See Sample | Privacy Policy quietly away in India, work hard to do. They generate trouble for their children, who have one foot in New York and one in India.

The director, Shailja Gupta, seems eager to explore the feelings and pressures that drive MOST E-MAILED MOST SEARCHED the characters’ romantic choices, though some of the conflict seems rigged. “Walkaway” 1. Op-Ed Columnist: Fast Track to Inequality is a pleasant enough time-pass, as they say in India, but stays too near the surface to be memorable. 2. Essay: Why Sisterly Chats Make People Happier WALKAWAY 3. Op-Ed Columnist: Get Bold, Barack Opens on Friday in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sacramento, Seattle, Washington and Raleigh, N.C. 4. Basics: Seeing the Natural World With a Physicist’s Lens Directed by Shailja Gupta; written by Ms. Gupta and Ruchika Lalwani; director of photography, Trisha Solyn; edited by Sanjay Sharma and Ms. Gupta; music by Sagar 5. At the Age of Peekaboo, in Therapy to Fight Autism Desai; production design by Ana Monroe; costumes by Amy Kramer; produced by Ms. Gupta, Shrikant Mohta, Mahendra Soni, Varun Shah, Ruchika Lalwani and Shawn Rice; 6. Op-Ed Columnist: Mugged by the Moralizers released by IABA Films. In English, French, Tamil and Hindi, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. This film is not rated. 7. The Vanishing Mind: Money Woes Can Be gy Early Clue to Alzheimer’s WITH: Manu Narayan (Darius), Samrat Chakrabarti (Shree), Manish Dayal (Vinay), 8. Op-Ed Columnist: The Second Marriage Sanjiv Jhaveri (Soham), Deepti Gupta (Nidhi), Carrie Anne James (Genevieve), Pallavi Sharda (Sia) and Ami Sheth (Anu). 9. Trillions of Reasons to Be Excited

A version of this review appeared in print on October 29, 2010, on page C9 of the New York edition. 10. Books on Science: Wrapped in Data and Diplomas, It’s Still Snake Oil

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