I thought this was a sweet, endearing portrayal of a classic immigrants` dilemma: the struggle to balance assimilation and alienation. The performances and direction were very good; what bothered me most about it was the over-reliance on cliched formulae: boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-almost-gets-girl, a la Woody Allen`s Manhattan; outrage at arranged marriage, a la a range of British south-asian flicks, not to mention Fiddler on the Roof; and pure Capracorn. i know that the American dream is a motivating force of great power, but this movie embodies a go-go 90s blind optimism, which borders on the cloying. Character motivation for the finale is completely unconvincing, nearing deus-ex-machina levels of ineffability. Yet, as a clever and highly commercializable ethnic formula-pic, it is a hit. The blandness and conformity of the engineers and doctors, which the film so openly derides, has seeped into this project as well. But this is the kind of treacle which will probably make a small wave. At least the director`s brother and lead male, Mr. Mehta, will! But, tell me, how is this different from the stories of immigrants from dozens of other cultures? I beg other readers to name some. Finally, and most disappointingly, I learned little about India or Indians from this movie. So, though i applaud the effort to tell the American uber-tale from yet another angle, I found myself wishing it weren`t so predictable and cliched.