Gurinder Chadha, director of Bend It Like Beckham and Bride And Prejudice, shares her affection for Frank Capra and the Ealing comedies of the 1940s and 1950s in this shattershot, feelgood romantic comedy.

Equal parts humour, horror and romance, It’s A Wonderful Afterlife is warm and fluffy like a freshly-baked naan bread, which just happens to be an unlikely weapon of choice for a serial killer who runs amok in the film.

Chadha and co-writer Paul Mayeda Berges struggle to strike a perfect balance between the genres, and the tonal gear changes are occasionally crunching.

A fantasy sequence inspired by the prom scene in Carrie is hysterical, but seems to belong to a different film entirely, and the script backs itself into a corner to find a denouement that pleases everyone.

Yet for its obvious flaws, Chadha’s film holds its characters in high affection and effortlessly curries our sympathy for its overweight heroine as she searches for everlasting love in a society that values good looks above a good heart.

Fast-rising cop DS Murthy (Sendhil Ramamurthy) transfers back to his home turf to work under DI Smythe (Mark Addy) and help solve a spate of bizarre murders in the local Indian community.

While meeting residents, Murthy runs into childhood friend Roopi (Goldy Notay), with whom he has always shared a spark.

Roopi’s mother, Mrs Sethi (Shabana Azmi) is delighted – maybe she will be finally able to marry off her overweight, self-conscious daughter.

However, there is a problem.

Mrs Sethi is the unlikely serial murderer that Murthy and his colleagues are hunting.

She has slain all of the people who thwarted her efforts to marry off Roopi and now the ghosts of these unfortunates – Curry Man (Sanjeev Bhaskar), Kebab Woman (Shaheen Khan), Naan Man (Ash Varrez) and Rolling Pin Woman (Adlyn Ross) – haunt her.

Once Roopi is married, Mrs Sethi will be able to rest in peace and join her husband in the afterlife, and the spirits will be able to cross over.

So the ghosts join forces with their killer to ensure a happy ending for Roopi and Murthy.

It’s A Wonderful Afterlife is outlandish from the opening scene of curry man’s demise but if you suspend disbelief somewhere in the upper stratosphere, Chadha’s film is entertaining.

Legendary Indian actor Azmi dons padding to play a downtrodden Punjabi mother, and Notay is absolutely adorable, catalysing simmering screen chemistry with Ramamurthy, who obligingly loses his shirt in a gratuitous locker-room scene.

Sally Hawkins channels Madame Arcati from Blithe Spirit as the kooky best friend who feels she is psychic after a mystical experience in India.

‘Psychic or psycho?’ scoffs Curry Man uncharitably.

When Addy’s beleaguered DI remarks, ‘This whole thing is ridiculous,’ we have to agree.

• Release Date: Wednesday 21 April 2010
• Certificate: 12A
• Runtime: 100mins

More Pictures