There's the germ of a good idea in Deepa Mehta's transatlantic, cross-cultural romance, which is pretty much summed up in the title - to bring together the world's two most powerful commercial film cultures, and create a hybrid that would be a hit in both India and America, and score with the myriad immigrant communities across the globe. There's big money at stake if nothing else.

Mehta, who herself emigrated to Canada in the 70s, sets her film in Toronto, and creates a standard-issue second-generation immigrant drama: assimilated Rahul (Rahul Khanna) needs to find the right kind of girl to keep his mother happy, so he pays bar pick-up Sue (Lisa Ray) to dress in traditional costume and pose as his intended. Mehta, who forged her reputation in the west with the powerful melodramas Fire and Earth, attempts to keep things pacy with slick photography and regular switches between "Hollywood" psychodrama and "Bollywood" dance and fantasy. But in the end the film is sunk by toe-curling dialogue and transparently awkward emoting. A let-down.