It's a Wonderful Afterlife

Gurinder Chadha brings together actors from Bollywood, the National Theatre, The Full Monty and Mike Leigh's rep company for a characteristically broad, big-hearted "Curry On" comedy about what the Southall police call "the Indian food-related murders". The serial killer is an Indian mother (Shabana Azi), her victims murdered for mocking her overweight daughter. She's unable to liberate their ghosts until she's dead, but can't die until she's found a suitable husband for the daughter. The movie begins with the stomach of a corpse exploding from the enforced consumption of an Indian meal, an incident that outdoes the death of Mr Creosote in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and makes John Hurt's predicament in Alien look like heartburn. It is the film's high point.