SALE: | $3.98 |
List Price: |
|
You Save: | $11 (73% Off) |
Currently Out of Stock:
We'll get more as soon as possible
Brand New
|
DVD Details
- Rated: R
- Closed captioning available
- Run Time: 2 hours, 4 minutes
- Video: Color
- Encoding: Region 1 (USA & Canada)
- Released: January 30, 2001
- Originally Released: 1999
- Label: Universal Studios
Performers, Cast and Crew:
Starring | Greta Scacchi, Madhur Jaffrey & James Wilby | |
Performer: | Sarah Badel, Joanna David, Sakina Jaffrey & Gemma Jones | |
Directed by | Ismail Merchant | |
Composition by | Richard Robbins | |
Produced by | Nayeem Hafizka & Richard Hawley | |
Director of Photography: | Pierre Lhomme |
Entertainment Reviews:
Rating: 2/4 --
The film wants to make larger points, but succeeds only in being a story of derangement.
Full Review
Chicago Sun-Times
...Jaffrey manages to steal the movie from co-star Scacchi, who gives one of the best performances of her career...
USA Today
Rating: 71/100 --
Cotton Mary suffers from its lack of sympathetic characters, but it is still far from a disaster.
Apollo Guide
Rating: 4.5/5 --
Engrossing from the first frame and written with admirable skill and insight by Alexandra Viets, Cotton Mary is a milestone for Merchant Ivory and a pleasure for the company's admirers.
Full Review
Los Angeles Times
Merchant's filmmaking is at times wooden and conventional, but Cotton Mary is brought to life by the weirdness of its subject matter and the risks Madhur Jaffrey takes in her brilliant performance.
Full Review
Village Voice
Rating: 1.5/5 --
Cotton Mary is terminally marred by good taste; and melodrama is like the Star-Kist commercial: people don't want tuna with good taste; they want tuna that tastes good.
New York Times
An Indian drama about the de-humanizing effects of class-warfare.
Full Review
Spirituality and Practice
Product Description:
In COTTON MARY, director Ismail Merchant explores the dynamics of being Anglo-Indian in post-colonial India. In 1954 British rule has officially ended in India but class-consciousness is still very much alive in the Macintosh household. After Lily Macintosh (Greta Scacchi) endures a painful pregnancy and delivery she becomes unable to breast-feed her baby daughter. Hospital nurse Cotton Mary (Madhur Jaffrey) comes to the rescue, secretly bringing the baby to her sister, a wet nurse, and uses the opportunity to become indispensably helpful and fulfill her ambitious desire to work in an English home. As an Anglo-Indian--she insists her father was a member of the British military--Cotton Mary ingratiates herself to Lily, considering herself more British than Indian. John Macintosh (James Wilby) is an absentee husband and father whose neglectful ways are fueled by the appearance of Mary's seductive niece, Rosie (Sakina Jaffrey, who is Madhur Jaffrey's real life daughter). Cotton Mary, whose nickname comes from her insistence upon wearing only British cotton, longs for acceptance by the white upper class members she serves while denouncing her Indian roots. Madhur Jaffrey, a long-time collaborator on Merchant Ivory productions, served as co-director of the film.