20/36
In Mumbai, nurse Prabha’s routine is turned upside down when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, struggles in vain to find a place in the city where she can be intimate with her boyfriend, director Payal Kapadia and the cast of All We Imagine As Light come together to share their most touching reactions from Cannes and more!. The first Indian film to win the prestigious Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. This film dramatizes the many challenges faced by single women living in Bombay and highlights their resilience. All the women here are nurses in the same hospital, but that’s where the similarities end, as each has her own unique set of problems and, one might say, solutions. Desire, fear, regret and dull patience are the emotions that alternate constantly as the story quietly unfolds. Perhaps the biggest asset is the screenplay, which offers unusually rich and thoughtful dialogue between the characters. The amount of action in the plot seems just enough to provide a backdrop for conversations in which people have room to be unusually honest and vulnerable with each other, even when they’re lying or faking. The acting is uniformly excellent and rises to the level of the writing: there are no false notes, though there are tempting loose threads. The photography and editing are also quite good at creating a thoughtful and somewhat detached atmosphere, which complements the quiet intensity of the characters’ interactions. The detachment is heightened at a few points where the film seems to incorporate documentary elements, or certainly creates a sense of that. I wasn’t always crazy about the music and the way it’s evoked, but that’s a minor gripe that many may not share. I take issue with another reviewer’s claim that this film is intended as “awards bait.” In my opinion, there’s too much heart and sincerity in this film to be classified as cynical or manipulative, certainly no more than any other film that tries to tell an important story in a compelling and beautiful way. And this film takes a lot of risks that I can’t imagine doing well in an increasingly sectarian and puritanical India. I highly recommend “All We Imagine as Light”.