Anita And Me

Director Metin Hüseyin's breezy adaptation of Meera Syal's terrific fictionalised memoir about growing up Anglo-Asian in the West Midlands in the early '70s suffers a little from British film's TV smallness, feeling at times like an extended episode of Goodness Gracious Me. But the crisp script and immense charm of 14-year-old newcomer Chandeep Uppal as the sassy prepubescent heroine Meena bring Syal's rites-of-passage story to life.