Deepa Mehta's much awaited Midnight's Children lushly captures much of India's recent history in an epic sweep, some of the magical realism of Salman Rushdie's iconic novel after which it is named, and is even funny. But persistent as Saleem Sinai's snot, even unto the new century of cinema, is that exotic India package--snake charmers in red turbans, magicians who say Abracadabra and slumdwellers who speak pucca English.

Mehta, Canada-settled director of Indian origin, slathers on the chutney much thicker than even Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle, who is British. The film was received with weak, scattered applause at its press preview here at the Toronto International Film Festival. First, only a braveheart would attempt to film Salman Rushdie's much beloved Booker of Bookers awarded novel, whose key strength is a rambunctious revelling in language, even if the film's screenplay is by Rushdie himself.

And India's history is familiar terrain with her earlier film, Earth. Midnight's Children is about a two children born at the same time that India was born, August 14, 1947, and so are "handcuffed to history". A nurse (the wonderful Seema Biswas) swaps the two babies--Saleem Sinai and Shiva--and switches their destinies. Following their lives till the next generation, the film takes in India's potted history--Partition, the liberation of Bangladesh, the Emergency.

The first half of the film is gloriously evoked and shot--by Mehta faithful Giles Nuttgens--but later, the editing makes the film seem like a bullet point-version of Indian history. Despite this, tedium sets in at a length of 148 minutes. There's a Bollywood touch, with the formula of siblings separated at birth, whose destinies are forever intertwined, and endless coincidences.

Satya Bhabha (Saleem Sinai) is earnest but not quite convincing; Shahana Goswami as his mother brings a mature presence; Rahul Bose as his uncle brings a stiff-upper lip flourish. Nitin Sawhney's music is evocative. The end--as Seema, Saleem's former ayah, becomes the 'mother' to his motherless son--emphasises a life defined by acts of love--and makes for a lingering feel-good climax.