An early production from the Merchant/Ivory team, set, as most of their early films were, in India. Starring Jennifer Kendal, Shashi Kapoor and Zia Mohyeddin it tells the story of a bored English woman novelist who destroys the lives of a young Indian film star and a scriptwriter. The intended irony of the melodrama doesn’t quite come off but the story is full of fine marginal details, such as the guru showing his followers colour slides of his conquest of Los Angeles, the plump-bottomed Indian girls performing a dance routine on giant typewriter keys for a Bombay musical and the society life of the Bombay film set.