''Night of Henna'' is a 2005

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and Romance novel, romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount all obstacles. Ro ...

film directed by Hassan Zee ('' Bicycle Bride''), and is the first

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...

. The film stars

Pooja Kumar Pooja Kumar Bhatt (née Joshi), is an American actress of Indian descent who works in Tamil, Hindi, and English-language Indian films. After winning Miss India USA in 1995, she pursued a career as an actress and producer. She has appeared in a ...

Reef Karim Reef Karim is a television personality, international speaker, author, and osteopathic physician. He is best known as the host of the Court TV television show '' House of Clues'', the host of the Discovery Fit & Health television show Broken Minds ...

, Nancy Carlin, Suhail Tayyeb, Ponni Swaminathan Chesser, and Craig Marker.

Plot

A young Pakistani woman is forced to choose between an

arranged marriage Arranged marriage is a type of Marriage, marital union where the bride and groom are primarily selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, particularly by family members such as the parents. In some cultures, a professional matchmaki ...

set up by her family and her true love.

Cast

Reception

G. Allen Johnson from '' SF Gate'' wrote that "Unfortunately, the plot is much too thin to sustain its 93-minute running time, and the underwritten script and sometimes painfully awkward staging and acting make "Night of Henna" rough going at times". A. O. Scott of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' wrote that "''Night of Henna'' was obviously made for very little money, and its earnest do-it-yourself feeling gives it a degree of charm, which is augmented by Ms. Kumar's unassuming loveliness". Jami Bernard of '' Daily News'' wrote that "First time writer-director-producer Hassan Zee follows a well-worn theme — the clash between generations of new immigrants — in this mildly pleasant movie". Laura Sinagra of ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...

'' wrote that "San Francisco indie striver Hassan Zee's Pakistani American spin on Monsoon Wedding hobbles a likable cast with dialogue flatter than Bollywood's cheesiest". Maitland McDonagh of ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' wrote that "Were it not for Kumar's luminous charisma, the film would be unwatchable".Maitland McDonagh , "Wedding bell blues", 2005 review of ''Night of Henna'' at ''TV Guide''
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References

External links

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''Night of Henna''
at

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 ...

* 2005 films American comedy films Pakistani comedy films Films about Pakistani Americans 2005 comedy films 2000s American films {{2000s-US-film-stub