INDIAN AMERICAN DIRECTOR Mira Nair is most acclaimed for her moving portrait of the harsh life of India's urban street kids, Salaam Bombay! Now she returns to contemporary India but shifts her focus to the tribulations of upper-middle-class Punjabis. At the center of Monsoon Wedding is a multiday, traditional Indian marriage ceremony that gathers family and friends for feasting, celebration, and rituals (such as henna body-painting). It also involves a rich blend of personality conflicts, generational misunderstandings, thwarted desires, and blossoming affairs. The film's sprawling, multicharacter story adroitly weaves together numerous intersecting lives: the bride, who is really in love with an already married man; the father, who is terrified his son is gay; the cousin, who must confront the childhood trauma of sexual abuse by her uncle; and the wedding planner, who is falling in love with the family maid. By compressing so much drama and conflict into three days, Nair treads dangerously close to soap opera, but she's saved by some intense, honest performances and a style that captures the poetry and lyricism of real life. The colorful Delhi settings are beautifully evoked, and Nair uses a handheld camera to get an intimate view of the family's interactions. Not just for art-house audiences, Monsoon Wedding is a film with broad appeal, featuring equal helpings of comedy, eros, and tragedy. It's also an insightful look into a dynamic culture in which members of the global Indian diaspora speak English and carry cell phones but return to India for the roots of their culture. Those who want to see more from Nair can check out a program of her short films (docs and fiction pieces) at this year's San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.