Bhaji on the Beach

A community group of British women (mostly Punjabis of various faiths) of different generations, take a group day out to the Blackpool Illuminations. The tensions of the generation gap torn between tradition and modernism as well as the personal upsets and issues of the women and girls come to boiling point as they spend the day out.

Simi, the head of the group, has modern social beliefs about feminism that the older club women object to, however she manages to be the caring, in-control figure who holds the day together despite tensions. Ginder is escaping from her abusive criminal husband with her young son and fighting the stigma of single parent and her son's pleas to have both a mother and father again. Two boy-crazy teenage girls meet with the disapproval of the conservative older ladies. Hashida is a high flying student who is about to start medical school, yet would prefer to be studying painting. She has hidden her Afro-Caribbean boyfriend Oliver from her family for a year, but now she's pregnant by him and now they must decide about the child and their relationship: would it stand the strain of social disapproval. Aasha, a devout Hindu and Bollywood-cinema fan, is stuck with a humdrum life in her convenience shop and finds excitement and a sense of fulfilling missed opportunities in life with a charming, eccentric, artistic English actor in Blackpool, yet feels she must stay in her marriage.

In the end, most of the characters have their stories left open. We do not see what happens to Aasha or Oliver and Hashida and the final scenes of these characters seem quite content but open-ended. Ginder and her son escape the violence of her husband and the most conservative characters receive a humorous treatment in a strip club.

The movie ends in an open way.

Cast

Reception

Sight & Sound said it 'offered some trenchant observations about prevalent prejudices and what the younger, British-born generation of Asians had to offer. In Bhaji on the beach, her feature film debut, Chadha has tried to adhere to this code of Buzurgh loyalty (the age span ranges from 6 to the late 60's), while trying to encompass the more awkward and raw elements thrown up by contemporary Asian women's lives. Rotten Tomatoes retrospective collected reviews from 8 critics to give the film a score of 88%.