Review of "Touch of Pink"

So, I will try and review something once a week, and will usually be artsy/gay or something I'm interested in reviewing.

Todays review is on "Touch of Pink". This movie is a gay film that takes place in both London, England, and Toronto, Canada. It follows the coming out of a muslim boy, named Alim and played by Jimi Mistry, who grew up in Toronto and moved to London. Alim's mother, Nuru who is played by the amazing Suleka Mathew, is born in Africa and grows up dreaming of becoming like Doris Day from the films during her time. A few years after Alim is born his father dies and so Nuru and Alim move to England. Due to persecution Nuru and Alim move to Toronto where Alim is raised. Nuru also liked watching Cary Grant films and this manifests in Alim in the form of an invisible friend for Alim. This spirit of Cary Grant, played by Kyle MacLachlan, walks around with Alim and helps him in his life adventures.

The movie starts from present day, 2004, where Alim is invited to his cousin's wedding. In order to get Alim to come over Nuru flies from Toronto to London, where Alim is now living, in order to reconnect with her son. By this point Alim has already found the man of his dreams, Giles played by Kristen Holden-Ried. Nuru of course doesn't know that her son Alim is gay and so Alim and Giles pretend that they are only friends throughout the whole time Nuru visits. The mother constantly tells Alim that she is waiting for him to find a nice muslim girl for himself just like his cousin Khaled has. Of course, this constant intertwinning in personal lives causes great disruption between Nuru, Alim, and Giles. Giles gets hurt by Alim due to Alim refusing to come out of the closet even remotely to his mother, and Nuru feels ashamed of Alim because he refuses to find a girl and only focuses on his work. Eventually it all breaks down into Giles leaving Alim and Alim coming out of the closet to his mother.

Nuru of course cannot handle the news and leaves back to Toronto immediately. Alim heartbroken by both sides of his life decides that maybe going to his cousin's marriage would not be such a bad idea. After Alim coming back, Nuru comes to her senses and eventually accepts Alim for being gay and is happy that Alim and Giles are together.

Of course that would be the way the story goes. Suddenly the mom, out of no where, is forced to defend her son and so she realises how much she loves him. And through this act of devotion she realises she is stupid and fully loves him in the same way as she once did. I find this sort of ridiculous though. I guess I am wanting a movie to relate real life somewhat, because I feel this is not the way life goes. I wish my life was as simple as that, but it isn't. After coming out to my mom she was accepting, which was more than Nuru could manage, but the difference is that the love never became the same. My mom basically had asked me to stay in the closet after coming out and also blamed everything I did on being gay. Instead of defending the person she loved she began an attack campaign. Afterward nothing I ever did was ever good enough. And she still refuses to let me just be who I am around my relatives. This is more of the fact that she is afraid what they will think of her, but it still is the issue of her not being behind me 100%. You would think a mother's love would go a long way, but apparently my mother's doesn't even reach her heart. Either way at least she pretends to love me and that is all that matters I guess.

The acting in the film was amazing. I think the mother was in fact one of the better actors of the lot. She was readily available to change emotions and kept those emotions perfectly. She put the right emphasis on the correct areas and did not create a monotonic emotional ring in which everything was either strong or soft. Jimi was I think one of the worse actors in the play. He seemed unable to really show frustration and mainly used high school drama tricks in order to portray his character. He really needed to work on character development to see what had happened in his life to lead him to London. Kristen also did a fairly good job. Although he seemed to only have two emotions the whole time, he handled them very well.

If you are gay, or enjoy a little gay romantic comedy, then I would recommend this movie to you. I personally hope to eventually have this film in my movie catalogue so I can watch whenever I want a pick me up.

-Aram the Garmo