The Other End of the Line 1.50 Stars

Movie type: Romance, Romance
MPAA rating: PG-13:for some suggestive material
Year of release: 2008
Run time: 106 minutes
Directed by: James Dodson, James Dodson
Cast: Anupam Kher, Anupam Kher, Jesse Metcalfe, Jesse Metcalfe, Larry Miller, Larry Miller, Sara Foster, Sara Foster, Shriya, Shriya

Reaching to make a connection

Email| Text size + By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff
10/31/2008

Let's say you're out at dinner one night after a long day in advertising. Your girlfriend is blabbing on her phone while you do the same. You get another call. It's a customer service agent, ringing to inquire about thousands of dollars in suspicious charges on your credit card. Do you A) immediately get to the bottom of this problem or B) hang up on her?

If you're Granger Woodruff, you terminate the call, since resolving the situation means "The Other End of the Line" ends up being a five-minute ad for buyer's insurance instead of an interminable interracial, international, intercultural romantic comedy. Inter-what?

Oh, right: The customer service agent sits in a Mumbai, India, call center. Her name is Priya (Shriya Saran), and she has been promised for marriage to a local mama's boy. Granger (Jesse Metcalfe) lives in New York and can't stop thinking about Priya's fake American accent.

Bursting with attraction, she hightails it to San Francisco, where Granger is trying to win an account and Priya's cousin is getting married. As for the dramatic tension: He has no clue that she's the call center girl. Her family shows up. So does his girlfriend. They all leave "romantic" and "comedy" in the dust.

Watching Granger and Priya chase each other around a hotel like squirrels in a park, you wonder what these two see in each other. Saran, with her big eyes and sweet demeanor, seems like the cute girl in your study group who you're afraid to Facebook. It's mysterious what she could possibly get from Metcalfe, who's the guy you know is in your class because he always needs to borrow your notes.

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Showtimes for The Other End of the Line

Tuesday, November 24
Click on a time to buy tickets from movietickets.com.

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