Masala is a full-color black comedy set in the East Indian community in Toronto. First-time director Srinivas Krishna mixes Bombay musical with MTV dreams, and divine intervention in the strangest places, to tell a story centering on a disillusioned young man (Krishna himself). Orphaned by an airplane bomb, the kid returns from a stint as a junkie to find his extended family mired in the pursuit of happiness in a multi-culti New World. Like a many-handed god, the director has cooked up a wild masala that is all over the place: a comedy that is thoroughly pessimistic, a political satire that has no politics, a spoof on the pressures of assimilation that shows those most assimilated (the women) to be the most sane. Finally, it is the "oldsters" who steal the show: the great Saeed Jaffrey in three roles (happy sari dealer, hapless stamp collector, and harried Krishna, the god); and Ms. Zohra Segal as a grandmother who puts her faith in modern conveniences, literally.