Written by: Tony Gerber & Lynn Nottage
Starring: Valeria Golino, Shashi Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Miho Nikaido, Art Malik, Victor Argo
Rating: [2/5]
When living under already stressful circumstances, adding in heat will only amplify the situation rather than de-escalate it. This circumstance brings people to the point of combustion much quicker and describes what we see in Side Streets. A film with the ambition of telling a story with many varying storylines set to converge but does not piece it together very well.
On a hot New York City day, Sylvie (Valeria Golino) dreams of obtaining her dream dress while dealing with a useless man, and Chandra (Shabana Azmi) must contend with the presence of her boisterous and demanding brother-in-law Vikram (Shashi Kapoor) as her husband fails to stand up for himself. This along with three other plotlines highlight a level of frustration between the characters that could ignite at any minute.
Trying to navigate three different storylines all in one story demands plenty from the filmmaker piecing it all together as they need to create enough intrigue and meaning in each of these separate stories and then somehow tie them all together through one thematic heft of a punch. Not everyone can succeed in putting it together coherently and evidently, Tony Gerber did not have what it took in order to make it all coherent.
With a mixture of five stories, quality will vary between each of them dependent on the actors within them and the story they receive. However, when a vast disparity between them exists and the better ones don’t work that well you really do not have much to go off of, unfortunately. However, the good ones at the very least allow for some interesting circumstances allowing for some good cultural conversations.
The one providing the most to think about occurs in Chandra and Vikram’s story. In an Indian family where Chandra has a very specific role she must follow but when the demanding brother, a washed-up actor throws his weight around and makes her life difficult, she finds herself in such an unfortunate situation. A place where she wants to speak up and demand her husband have some dignity instead of just taking verbal manipulation from his brother. A battle of trying to overcome the misogyny of her circumstance while still respecting the family and cultural customs in place and foundational to their upbringing. This stress compounds with the heat that will certainly not end particularly well. It becomes a matter of when not if.
Each of these stories presents the struggle at the center, the characters in play, and how it will eventually escalate because of the heat. Each situation provides something unique as compared to the others with each situation presenting a cultural difference intended to add some texture to it all. Additionally, the heat in New York just hits differently than anywhere else, especially with everyone cramped so close together.
Even when independent films do not have quality at the very least they can spare us by having a short runtime to end the misery. Surprisingly and unfortunately this feature nearly reaches the two-hour mark, which theoretically makes sense when combining this number of stories within this narrative. However, when this feature fails to bring them together in an impactful manner or give them a particularly fulfilling conclusion it then feels like a complete waste of time. This leaves this film with five incomplete and unsatisfying segments allowing for some interesting commentary in each but not amounting to anything substantive.
In all honesty, I sought out this film because of my appreciation of Rosario Dawson and wanting to watch something early on in her filmography, but we get so little of her and receive much more dreck unfortunately. You have an actor like Valeria Golino in your story but do not give her the appropriate material to effectively tell the story of her character. It feels wrong being this harsh on a film like this because it certainly contained good intentions with the story it sought to tell and themes it wants to explore but perhaps they would have been better off taking one of these stories and delving deeper into them rather than trying to make this web of narratives into something making this big meaningful tale never fully coming together. I appreciate the effort but it does not amount to much.
Films with Josh 
