text_a: the acting , for the most part , is terrific , although the actors must struggle with the fact that they 're playing characters who sometimes feel more like literary conceits than flesh-and-blood humans .
text_b: ... by the time it 's done with us , mira nair 's new movie has its audience giddy with the delight of discovery , of having been immersed in a foreign culture only to find that human nature is pretty much the same all over .