Search

Cotton Mary

1999, Movie, R, 122 mins

Cotton Mary: Review

COTTON MARY
starstarstarstar
Could this be the Great Breast-Feeding Movie? Maybe, but Ismail Merchant's latest attempt to document every micron of the British-in-India experience is also a creepily unpleasant study of race and class with a plot by way of ALL ABOUT EVE and SUNSET BOULEVARD. Lily (Greta Scachi), the unhappy wife of a BBC correspondent stationed in southern India circa 1954, goes into labor unexpectedly. After the baby is born she finds she can't nurse, dooming her newborn (what, no infant formula?). Enter Cotton Mary (Madhur Jaffrey), an ambitious Anglo-Indian hospital attendant who swoops the baby off to her sister, a wet nurse living in an alms house. Within days, Mary has snagged a a job in Lily's palatial home, gotten an old family retainer canned for crimes he didn't commit, and nudged Lily's emotionally detached husband into a squalid affair with another (much better looking) sister. Surprise, surprise, Mary ultimately gets her comeuppance, going bonkers so theatrically you half-expect her to petition Mr. DeMille for her close-up. But before that happens, you spend too much time in the company of characters ranging from the unlikeable to the repellent; get your nose rubbed in the fact that the downtrodden can be every bit as bigoted and small-minded as their oppressors; and — oh yes — are treated to what you can safely bet are the most breast-feeding scenes per minute in the history of film. As crowd-pleasing dramatic devices go, this is not exactly on par with exploding spaceships. leave a comment --Steve Simels
Advertisement

Shop

Cotton Mary
Buy Cotton Mary from Amazon.com
From Universal Studios (DVD)
Average Customer Review: nostarnostarnostarhalfstarstar
Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy New: $13.49

more Cotton Mary products

Advertisement

Related Websites

You might be also interested in the following websites:

Most Popular TV Shows

  1. Dancing with the Stars
  2. The Game
  3. NCIS
  4. American Idol
  5. Wife Swap
more popular tv shows

Most Popular Celebrities

  1. Michelle Obama
  2. Adam Lambert
  3. Tiger Woods
  4. Kym Johnson
  5. Donny Osmond
more popular celebrities

Most Popular Movies

  1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon
  2. The Blind Side
  3. 2012
  4. Planet 51
  5. A Christmas Carol
more popular movies

Top Videos

  1. Adam Lambert
  2. #5 Adam Lambert - For Your En...
  3. #20 Adam Lambert American Mus...
  4. Dancing with the Stars
  5. V
more top videos