The Rahul Bose-starrer Before The Rains will be released in the US on Friday and the actor says he and director Santosh Sivan are expecting to make an impact beyond the song-and-dance formula with this film. “Before the Rains releases in the US on May 9. It’s going to play in New York and 10 other cities. Not in the NRI theatres, but it’s definitely an art house release. So Santosh and I hope to make an impact beyond the song and dance formula with this one,” Rahul said from Los Angeles.

“It’s a film-noire about an illicit love relationship and how I get caught in it. It’s definitely an art house product with an element of whodunit.” Set in pre-independent India, Santosh’s film, also starring Leopold Benedict and Nandita Das, is about an idealistic young Indian man (Rahul) who finds himself torn between his ambitions for the future and his loyalty to the past when people in his village learn of an affair between his British boss (Linus Roache) and a village woman (Nandita). Rahul has already impressed critics in the US. At the recently concluded Tribeca Film Festival in New York, critic Sandy Mandelbergers wrote that the impossibly handsome Indian actor gives a startling performance as a man torn between modernism and tradition, a metaphor for his entire country.

Commenting on that, Rahul said, “Either this lady can’t see or hasn’t met many men. But seriously I’m deeply flattered. I’m getting that face-lift and hair-weave done asap.” The film has just won three major awards at the Houston Film Festival. “It’s a triumph for Santosh on so many levels. A film in English from India winning the awards for best film, best cinematography and best music ... it’s incredible!”

Before The Rains also goes to Britain. Rahul has had three releases in three different languages in the last one month. “Samar Khan’s Shaurya came first. It was in Hindi and I was very pleased with its outcome. Then came Before The Rains and I also had a Bengali release in India this week. Buddhadeb Dasgputa’s Kalpurush is a film very close to my heart. And we waited two years for it to release,” sighed Rahul.