The Mystic Masseur

Based on Nobel Prize-winner V.S. Naipaul's 1957 debut novel and set in the colonial Trinidad of his youth, this picaresque tale, which unfolds in the 1940s and '50s, chronicles an aspiring writer's rise from anonymous rural poverty to local renown as a guru. Played out against the background of the Indian community in Trinidad, producer and occasional director Ismail Merchant's immensely respectful film features luscious scenery, a profusion of incidents and emphatic performances. But overall, it's a curiously lifeless affair. Country-born school teacher Ganesh Ramsumair (Aasif Mandvi) possesses a voracious love of literature and learning, but is stymied by local bia...