by MATTHEW HAYS

Watching Touch of Pink, Ian Iqbal Rashid's feature directorial debut, it isn't hard to sense the writer-director's love of old Hollywood movies. Virtually every frame of the movie is drenched in old-school references, from Hudson-Day romantic comedies to family melodramas.

But don't mistake Rashid for someone living in the past. The Tanzanian-born, Canada-raised and London-based filmmaker uses the references to great effect, dragging his characters from the past into the present, and often back and forth again. It's the tale of a young gay Muslim man (played by Jimi Mistry), living in bliss in London with his sweet gay boyfriend (Kristen Holden-Ried). Trouble is, Toronto-based mom (Suleka Mathew) has no idea that her son is gay, and when she comes for a visit, Mistry is nowhere near ready to break the big news.

Out of the past

It all sounds like a typical coming out comedy, but Rashid keeps his script suitably quirky and surprising, and that makes Touch of Pink one of the best romantic comedies of the year. It emerges from the self-conscious clichés of the genre and becomes many things at once: a homage to Hollywood romcoms, a coming-out movie, an exploration of race in post-colonial U.K., and a family melodrama. Tossed into it all is the film's sublime running gag: protagonist Mistry is haunted by the ghost of Cary Grant, who follows him throughout the movie, offering him bits and pieces of advice, both asked for and not. It's an hilarious conceit, and Kyle MacLachlan is unbelievably perfect as the late matinée idol.

"I love old Hollywood movies," Rashid says from his London, U.K., home, not surprising me one bit. "I mean, I'm not walking around talking to the ghost of Cary Grant, but those films have brought me a lot of joy. At the same time, they've messed me up. They entertain, but they don't let me in - I'm not in them. They've been alienating, in many ways, because on some level I think I've always yearned to be white, Hollywood white, and wanted to have that happy ending. And yet it's impossible."

Rashid worked to alter things, both through his own film and TV writing as well as curatorship. In the '80s, he founded and coordinated Desh Pardesh, the Toronto event that is the first North American festival celebrating South Asian arts. In '90, he moved to London, where he landed steady writing work for various TV series, including the cult program This Life. Meanwhile, Rashid was working things out with his Muslim parents, who were none too happy when they learned he was gay. "They essentially threw me out when I told them," he recalls.

Ethnics make good

Indeed, despite the ghost and the odes to old-school Hollywood, Rashid concedes much of Touch of Pink is autobiographical. And it certainly ties into a major international movie trend, one which has opened up new possibilities for non-white and gay filmmakers. Taken along with My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Monsoon Wedding, Bend It Like Beckham and even our homegrown Mambo Italiano, Touch of Pink is another example of the New Ethnic Blockbuster, in which wisecracking elder relatives are confronted with the new world and their assimilating offspring. These Old-World-meets-New films are marked by a warm rosy glow and gentle, happy conclusions.

"Things have changed," Rashid confirms hopefully. "Though I acknowledge those films, I actually wrote the first draft of Touch of Pink 11 years ago. It was turned down for a long time. People were simply not interested in ethnic films. It has been a long time since My Beautiful Laundrette."

Rashid is quick to add, however, that while ethnic comedies of a certain flavour may now be welcome, the gay content in Touch of Pink also proved contentious from the get-go. "It had been a while since a gay film had made a breakthrough, so that made selling it quite difficult. But I really didn't want to take the gay stuff out. There's a great deal of hypocrisy in the Muslim community around homosexuality. There is in every community, for sure, but I didn't want to write that out of the script here, it's something we have to face."

And that motif, not shockingly, has earned Rashid his share of enemies. "Yes, I've got some very nasty e-mails. And some mosques in Vancouver and Toronto were trying to have Touch of Pink banned. But I've also received some wonderful e-mails: A 60-year-old man in Vancouver e-mailed me and said he was a widowed grandfather who'd been closeted his whole life. But after seeing the film, he felt he could start coming out to people. It was tremendous to read that."

Shaw redux

Still, for any social change the film promotes, it is still, overwhelmingly, what playwright George Bernard Shaw thought of as a sugar-coated pill: progressive message wrapped in frothy entertainment. That puts it at odds with two of the most crucial Thatcher-era films about race, sex and class, My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, both collaborations of screenwriter Hanif Kureishi and director Stephen Frears.

"Certainly, mine is a hopeful film. Times have changed. I came to Britain in 1990. Today, Toronto and London have really changed. The British Tories were still in power back then. For all his faults, Tony Blair has helped to change the social climate in Britain. And now I think Toronto is the greatest multicultural project in the Western world. It's a comfortable multiculturalism, much more than London, which still has a way to go. That's tremendously hopeful.

"There was something deeply nihilistic about Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. It was a reflection of the incredible damage Thatcher had done. When you think about the things that Reagan, Thatcher and Mulroney did, they were dreadful."

And the current political regime? "I really think that should Bush get a second term, films like Bend It Like Beckham and Touch of Pink won't be made anymore. That optimism will be gone. The sense of political opposition will take hold again."

In the meantime, Rashid makes no apologies for the upbeat streak that runs through his first feature. "Yes, the world isn't always a happy place. But I've made peace with who I am and with my parents, who now entirely accept me and my boyfriend. I fit into this culture. And that is a happy ending."

Touch Of Pink opens Friday, Sept. 10

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