In this postcolonial love story a British therapist in her late fifties falls head over heals for a much younger Indian professor of psychology. Dilip Das becomes the sun around which the planets of Susan Shandy’s thoughts, dreams and emotions circle. While Dilip enjoys Susan’s devotion and several trips to Britain, he has no intention of breaking up from his traditional Indian marriage back home in Calcutta. Susan does not want to believe this. Determined to push their relationship forward across any terrain, she keeps igniting their five-cylinder engine of passion until the motor explodes in Mumbai.
Candid and humorous, this saga of irrational perseverance and impossible passion leads to the embarrassing conclusion that the relationship in which Susan has invested everything is as bland and banal as elevator music, signifying nothing even as it takes you to the top.