In Theaters

CHUTNEY POPCORN 92 minutes, not rated; directed by Nisha Ganatra; written by Susan Carnival and Ganatra. Starts Friday, Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville.

The title of 26-year-old Nisha Ganatra’s first feature film, “Chutney Popcorn,” is something of a problem. It makes her movie sound clumsy and juvenile, when in fact it’s a rich, often funny “dramedy” about an Indian-American lesbian who comes to find her place in the world with the help of her sister, her sister’s husband, her mother, her partner – and, of all things, a turkey baster.

The film stars Ganatra as Reena, a sweet, cherub-faced photographer and henna-tattoo artist who lives in reenwich Village with her girlfriend, Lisa (Jill Hennessy of “Law and Order”).

When Reena’s older, recently married sister, Sarita (Sakina Jaffrey), learns she isn’t able to conceive children, Reena, always the underdog in her family because of her lesbianism, realizes this is her moment to shine.

Finally, she can do something her “perfect” sister can’t while, at the same time, proving to her difficult-yet-well-meaning mother, Meenu (Madhur Jaffrey), that just because she happens to love women, doesn’t mean she isn’t a woman herself.

Thus begins Reena’s quest to get pregnant by Sarita’s husband, Mitch (Nick Chinlund). At first, Sarita is reluctantly for it, as is Lisa, who proves deft at handling the turkey baster and Mitch’s handiwork. But those feelings eventually change as Reena’s belly grows, forcing each woman to face each other, their prejudices, their fears and themselves.

“Chutney Popcorn” may seem predictable on the surface, but it isn’t; Ganatra and her co-screenwriter, Susan Carnival, ignite their story midway through with an unexpected twist. Exactly what that twist is won’t be revealed here, but it’s a smart touch, one that nicely complicates the proceedings and deepens the repercussions of Reena’s decision to have this child.

If Ganatra decides to go for a happy ending that neatly resolves all that came before, she can be forgiven. Her film, backed by a minuscule budget, is extremely well-acted and well-directed, a unique movie that brings together its different themes and cultures in an honest attempt to explore them all with a measure of good humor.

Grade: B+

On Video

FREQUENCY 117 minutes, PG-13; directed by Gregory Hoblit. Written by Toby Emmerich.

Those interested in renting Gregory Hoblit’s “Frequency” have a decision to make, one that’s going to make or break their experience of seeing the film. They have to decide whether they can suspend disbelief for two hours in a film that demands, above all, that they open their minds to one of the year’s more preposterous plots.

In the film, a 36-year-old New York cop in 1999 talks to his firefighter father in 1969. They do this with the help of a shortwave radio, some mystical northern lights that wrap rather conveniently around rooftop antennas and some spectacular sun flares, all of which somehow bend time to bring the two men back together again.

That’s right – back together. You see, 30 years ago, the father, Frank Sullivan (Dennis Quaid), died while battling a fire, leaving his son John (James Caviezel), to be raised by his mother, Julia (Elizabeth Mitchell).

Since John now owns and lives in his childhood home, the two men are essentially communicating in the same space with the same ham radio – the only division between them being death and time.

It either takes great skill to pull something as shaky as this off, or a whole lot of chutzpah. Hoblit opts for chutzpah.

He uses his unique reunion for all it’s worth, wrenching genuine emotion from a conversation most would love to have with a departed loved one, but he also hauls in serial killers and gunfights, people dropping dead and then springing miraculously back to life. He knows the laws of movie time travel and follows them closely in a film that suggests if you tinker with something in the past, it will forever change the present.

How John Sullivan’s present is changed won’t be explored here, but in spite of some glitches, and one of the more painfully sentimental and unforgivable endings going, it’s mostly an engrossing trip.

Grade: B

RETURN TO ME 115 minutes. PG; directed by Bonnie Hunt. Written by Hunt and Don Lake.

Let’s get the premise right out of the way.

In Bonnie Hunt’s “Return to Me,” a near-dead woman with a failing heart receives the healthy heart of her future boyfriend’s newly dead wife. That’s one big load of cinematic cheese, but the good news here is that the film doesn’t suffer cardiac arrest because of it.

“Return to Me,” which recalls the best romantic comedies of the 1950s, easily could have starred Doris Day and Rock Hudson. It’s exactly the sort of fare that once turned actors into matinee idols. You know none of what unfolds could ever happen in the real world, but with a cast as strong and as likable as this, the premise works in spite of itself.

The film stars David Duchovny as Bob, a Chicago architect who is devastated when he loses his wife, Elizabeth (Joely Richardson), in a car wreck. A year passes before he meets Grace (Minnie Driver), the very woman who received Elizabeth’s heart in a speedy transplant.

Of course neither Bob nor Grace know that little tidbit when they meet, but the audience certainly does; within 10 minutes, Hunt makes it clear where this film is going.

Surprisingly, the film’s predictability doesn’t hurt it, and that’s because Hunt chooses to build tension and entertain in other ways. Her focus is on her talented cast, which includes terrific performances from Carroll O’Connor, Robert Loggia, Eddie Jones, William Bronder, Marianne Muellerleile, James Belushi, David Allen Grier and Hunt herself.

What gives “Return” an added lift is the depiction of Grace’s home life, which centers on the Irish-Italian restaurant her family owns. There, in a world that still champions the music of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Vic Damone, the film comes to life in its relationships.

Grade: B+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Style and Thursdays in the scene.

TH VIDEO CORNER

Renting a video? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Frequency B

Return to Me B+

Center Stage D+

The Patriot B+

Toy Story 2 A

Keeping the Faith B+

Rules of Engagement C-

Shanghai Noon C

Pitch Black B+

East-West A-

The Skulls D-

Snow Day F

U-571 C-