Slumdog Millionaire was not the only romantic movie to release in 2008 based heavily in Mumbai, India, featuring a lead character who works in a call center! The Other End of the Line, based partly in Mumbai, India, is a romantic comedy starring Jesse Metcalfe (“Desperate Housewives”), Shriya Saran and Anupam Kher which released in theaters on October 31, 2008 and on DVD on March 31, 2009.
The plot of The Other End of the Line centers around Priya Sethi (Shriya Saran), an attractive young employee at Citi One Bank Card call center in Mumbai, India, who becomes interested in Granger Woodruff (Jesse Metcalfe), a client from New York City, following several phone conversations about the fraudulent charges on his credit card. Citi One trains its Indian employees to use American names and tell their American clients they are based out of American cities, so Priya tells Granger she is Jennifer David based out of San Francisco.
When Granger has a business meeting in San Francisco, He calls “Jennifer” and asks her if she would like to meet him while he is in town. Priya does the unthinkable in her culture – she boards a plane alone to fly to America to meet a stranger. When Priya’s traditional Indian family finds out she has gone to San Francisco, they fly over to rescue their daughter from the man they think lured her away.
The Other End of the Line is “Romeo and Juliet” meets “A Comedy of Errors” as Priya and Granger get off to a couple of false starts while Priya’s family searches San Francisco for their wayward daughter. Merriment, mayhem and romance ensue under the Golden State Bridge. However, something always seems to get in the way of the romance, and Granger lets Priya return to India with her family. I try not to give away too much in my reviews, but I have to say, the ending of The Other End of the Line is straight out of “An Officer and a Gentleman” without the officer’s cap.
While The Other End of the Line is somewhat predictable and not nearly as noteworthy as Slumdog Millionaire, it is still a fun, light-hearted movie with a couple of mild morals to it. The acting is palatable, especially Anupham Kher as Priya’s father, and the scenes juxtaposing and segueing from New York to Mumbai were well done. The Other End of the Line is a lighthearted modern-day love story, rated PG-13 (for some adult situations), and is worth seeing.
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