''Cotton Mary'' is a 1999 film co-directed by

Ismail Merchant Ismail Merchant (born Ismail Noor Muhammad Abdul Rahman; 25 December 1936 – 24 May 2005) was an Indian film producer. He worked for many years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included film director (and Merchant's longt ...

, best known as the producer half of

Merchant Ivory A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...

, and the Indian actress and writer

Madhur Jaffrey Madhur Jaffrey Order of the British Empire, CBE (née Bahadur; born 13 August 1933) is an Indian-born British-American actress, cookbook and travel writer, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing Indian cuisine to the weste ...

, who also co-starred. It is a sensual film, shot in coastal South India.

Plot

Lily Macintosh (Scacchi), an upper-class

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

woman living in India, has struggled since the birth of her child and is in need of a nanny. An Indian military nurse known as Cotton Mary (Jaffrey) takes the post; she is an ambitious woman who is eager to be part of British society. She seems kind at first, but her true nature gradually reveals itself as she manipulates everyone around her to get what she wants.

Cast

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

the film has a score of 52% based on reviews from 18 critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

the film has an approval rating of 36% based on reviews from 33 critics.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

gave the film two out of four stars.

References

External links

Cotton Mary
* 1999 films 1999 drama films British drama films English-language French films Films directed by Madhur Jaffrey Films directed by Ismail Merchant Films set in India French drama films Merchant Ivory Productions films 1990s English-language films 1990s British films 1990s French films Films scored by Richard Robbins {{1990s-UK-film-stub