Linus Roche and Nandita Das star in Before the Rains.

MIP/Roadside Attractions

The clash of cultures in British-ruled India is the background for the steamy melodrama that unfolds in Before the Rains, opening today at the Jane Pickens Theater in Newport.

A British spice planter. A pretty Indian housemaid. Adultery. A jealous husband. A too-trusting wife. A pistol. Tragedy. These are the sultry ingredients greasing the wheels of the film, although it’s really about the inner conflict raging within an Indian man named T.K. (Rahul Bose), the right-hand man to planter Henry Moores (Linus Roche).

Before the Rains, whose title refers to the coming monsoon rains as well as the tide of nationalism which will eventually sweep the British Raj from India, is set in 1930s colonial India. Moores is hoping to build a road through a mountainous area so he can open new fields for planting the spices wanted by the rest of the world. T.K. is the middle man who knows the ways of his countrymen and assists in putting villagers to work on the road.

T.K. is so close to his boss that he has been seduced by him, thinking himself an equal with Henry. But, as it eventually becomes apparent even to T.K., the British consider themselves a little (or in some cases, a lot) more equal than the natives, even someone as well spoken as T.K. While T.K. preaches the idea that “mutual cooperation equals equal respect” to his brethren, some of them have become increasingly vocal in their demands that the British should get out.

The working arrangement between Henry and T.K. might have gone on indefinitely were it not for the married Henry’s inability to keep his hands off his housekeeper, the lovely married Sajani (Nandita Das).

Henry and Sajani have been brewing more than tea for a long time. But Sajani’s jealous, violent husband has been getting suspicious. Worse, Henry’s wife Laura (Jennifer Ehle) and young son have returned from England and things soon begin getting a little crowded in the big house what with Henry trying to balance his life with his wife and his mistress under the same roof.

T.K., ever the faithful assistant, is complicit in keeping Henry’s affair a secret. But Sajani has come to believe all Henry’s love coos and thinks he will throw over his wife and risk his future in India for her. Fat chance. Things come to a head when Sajani’s husband discovers that she has been seen cheating with a man “on sacred ground,” although fingers have yet to point Henry’s way.

What follows in Cathy Rabin’s script are several melodramatic set pieces that grow sudsier and more traumatic as the noose of truth tightens and the lives of all the principal characters are put at risk. T.K. is at the center of the fire storm, torn between loyalty to his boss, whom he has come to think of as his friend, and his people. As things grow more complicated and Henry’s actions fly in the face of traditional Hindu practices, T.K. is put to the test in a very dramatic way when he is suspected of murder and is called before the tribal council to explain himself. This includes the icky hot-spoon-on-the-tongue defense.

Director Santosh Sivan has captured the exotic beauty of the landscape and also the tone of an era when cultures collided and discovered that despite their often common goals, there were too many cultural differences pulling them apart. Before the Rains uses Henry as a metaphor for the end of empire as his own ambitions trump even his feelings for his wife and the people he holds dear.

Yet its florid melodrama makes its good intentions seem overripe and, in the end, overly obvious. It’s based on the short Israeli film Red Roofs, about the collision of cultures between Israelis and Palestinians. In that, Before the Rains proves that its theme is universal.

***Before the Rains

Starring: Linus Roche, Rahul Bose, Nandita Das, Jennifer Ehle. In English and Malayalam with English subtitles.

Rated: PG-13, contains sexual situations, violence, adult themes.

mjanuson@projo.com