Review: 'Dostana'

In the Indian feature "Dostana," two straight men pretend to be a gay couple to live in a luxurious Miami apartment. When they realize their new roommate will be a gorgeous (straight) woman, the charade immediately becomes more complicated. The film projects a fairly benign, effectively neutral attitude toward gay life, but homosexuality remains officially illegal in India, making "Dostana" playfully rebellious if not exactly a grand social statement. Rather, the film mines the situation as a freewheeling comedy of manners with an appropriate touch of weepy melodrama and, this being Bollywood, songs, songs, songs in the darndest places.

By Mark Olsen

November 17, 2008