Britain’s Cherie Blair and Elizabeth Hurley have been great ambassadors for the sari and now Hollywood actress Jessica Alba joins them
NEW YORK: Britain’s Cherie Blair and Elizabeth Hurley have been great ambassadors for the sari but now Hollywood actress Jessica Alba, best known for her roles as an exotic dancer in Sin City, takes the sari the full six yards in The Love Guru.
Alba splashes out in an orange sari during her raunchy Bollywood-style dance sequence in the Mike Myers comedy which opens in North America on June 20. Paramount Pictures is hard-selling the film across America with publicity stills showing Alba tantalisingly decked out in all the glory of a sari.
“I’m personally a fan of Eastern philosophy and the fact that this movie revolves around something that I feel is nothing but positive energy to put out into the world, is great,” 26-year-old Alba, who is expecting, told US media.
Manhattan designer Gurpreet Pia Fleming who designs flirty saris says that stars like Alba and Angelina Jolie have done much to ensure saris pass the “droolability” test this summer with the fashion-obsessed in New York.
“Even Americans who haven’t been exposed to the Far East are now appreciating the “wow” factor in our embellished clothes where the colours are bold and Asian,” Fleming told DNA.
Alba and The Love Guru cast including Myers, Ben Kingsley, Bombay Dreams hero Manu Narayan and Justin Timberlake have been slightly taken aback by the Hindu protests the laugh-out-loud comedy has stirred.
“I am deeply concerned after seeing the trailer. It appears to be lampooning Hinduism. Hindu terms are also used frivolously. It perpetuates silly stereotypes of Hindus,” Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism (USH), told DNA.
Myers did tonnes of “read-throughs” and scripted the big laughs in the film by having “secret shows” of The Love Guru in small New York theatres before polishing up the final screenplay.
Myers is trying to create the magic of an “Austin Powers” through his new film. The plot is goofy: Meyers will play Pitka an American abandoned at the gates of an ashram in India as a child. After being raised by gurus he moves back to the US (with his elephant) to seek fame and fortune in the world of self-help.
Pitka’s unorthodox methods are tested when he gets involved in resolving a rift between a professional hockey player (Romany Malco) and his estranged wife, who starts an affair with a rival hockey player (Justin Timberlake) out of spite. This sends Malco’s character into a professional slump and throes of jealousy — to the horror of the teams’ owner Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) and coach Cherkov (Verne Troyer). Pitka is tasked with returning the couple to marital nirvana and getting Roanoke back on his game so the team can break the 40-year-old “Bullard Curse” and win the Stanley Cup.
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