/> Starring Amitabh Bachchan, Tabu, Paresh Rawal, Zohra Sehgal, Swini Khara
Directed by R. Balki
Rating: ****

The incandescent Tabu makes her 'bitter'-half in this sweet-and-slender confection, run across the London fields... "Just to see if you've the energy to do anything after we get married," she tells him her tongue firmly in cheek.

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Cheeni Kum is probably the sauciest, sassiest, slickest, smoothest and most scrumptious romantic comedy you'll see in the Hindi language in a long time.

She's in London for a holiday. He is a cantankerous sarcastic chef who can't take a snub even when it's served up on a platter.

Menu rab da vaasta!

Lolita, go eat your art out. Cheeni Kam makes you forget there's a difference of 30 years between the girl and, ahem ahem, the boy. That's the magic of pure acting. The magic of two of the finest actors at work as they create an ebullient alchemy.

On the menu in this mellow ode to love's luminous largesse are an 85 -year old mom (Zohra Sehgal) living life king-sized, a 7-year old terminally-ill girl (Swini Khara, the most prized discovery of the year) who watches claims the chef as her very intimate friend and watches all the adult DVDs he gets her, since she won't get a chance to do so later.

Then there's heroine's Gandhian father who can't stop reminding his damaad-to-be of his autumnal age. And last but certainly not the least in this feisty feast, there's the churlish chef's kitchen staff comprising some of the most sparkling cameo-actors you've seen.

Unarguably one of the finest directorial talents in this millennium, Balki just sweeps that age thing under the carpet.

Yes, the dialogues make pointed barbed references to what it's like for two such generation-challenged people to come together and laugh at each other's foibles.

It's hard to decide in which capacity Balki scores higher marks... as director or dialogue writer. Caustic and crisp, mordant and modern, pithy and passionate....the words weave a minty magic across this intelligent yet spontaneous comedy of romantic errors.

Shakespeare meets Gulzar in this evocative and funny love story.

The flavour of the exchanges between the wry surly chef in London and the serene Indian girl from Delhi who makes the cardinal mistake of criticizing the arrogant chef's Hyderabadi biryani, is so distinctly pungent and peppery you wonder which came first in the writer-director's range of vision: the mix-matched couple or the words that they exchange to bring each other closer to that feeling which we sometimes call love, sometimes don't even recognize it for what it is.

Just like the dishes from the kitchen of the Indian restaurant where some of the satire unfurls, the brilliant banter between Bachchan and Tabu is light on top, cooked just right and served at ummmmmmmmmm temperature.

In the first -half cinematographer P.C Sreeram captures an unexplored side of London. As the relationship between the couple grows, you sense undercurrents of feisty defiant and mischievous feelings trickling out of the verbal banter that you until now thought existed only in the range of the unspoken.

But then Mr Bachchan and Tabu are that kind of actors. They imbue every encounter on the rain-slickened streets of London into an occasion to celebrate the life force.

Tabu is a natural-born scene-stealer. She more than meets her match in her co-star.Is there no end to the surprises Mr Bachchan springs on us periodically? To imagine Cheeni Kum without Bachchan is to imagine that pivotal Hyderabadi biryani that brings the couple together, without the saffron..or any other flavour for that matter.

This intimate, amusing warm and utterly beguiling intimate character-study of love and its sudden appearance in lives that have accepted its non-presence, derives considerable energy from the supporting cast.

Not Paresh Rawail who as Mr Bachchan's outraged father-in-law –to-be is surprisingly bland, but Zohra Sehgal as Mr Bachchan's spunky mother and more specially, little Swini Khara as Mr Bachchan's nextdoor neighbour who in her terminal illness provides the narrative with the gift of life....grab the lapels of your heart and sweep you into a world of love's most satirical fears and foibles.

There are moments in this quirky captivating and curvaceous cinema that touch the highest notes of drama without getting hysterical.

What makes Cheeni Kum so unique? Is it the amazingly laidback chemistry between the lead pair? Is it the combination of satire and romance, mixed stirred and served up in a tall frothy glass? It is Balki's word-spin that takes the romance into areas of absolutely seductive brightness?

Is it the the way London (mellow, supple, sensuous) and Delhi (heated grimy and spiced up) have ben captured by Sreeram's calmly articulate cinematography? Or is it Ilayaraja's talcum-fresh melodies trickling emotions in austere motions?

What makes Cheeni Kum so special in spite of a far-from-flawless second-half?

Could it be just the magic between Amitabh Bachchan and Tabu who seem to look into each other's eyes and souls with such warmth and affection you forget their age difference completely.

Nah! It's more. Cheeni Kum is a film where the words so match the thoughts and feelings of the characters that you forget someone else wrote the dialogues for the unlikely lovers.