All We Imagine as Light

This film dramatizes many of the challenges faced by single women living in Bombay, and underscores their resiliency. All of the women here are nurses at the same hospital, but there the resemblance ends as each has her own particular set of problems and, one could say, solutions. Desire, fear, regret and stolid patience are the emotions that continually alternate as the story quietly unfolds.

Probably the biggest asset is the screenplay, which offers unusually rich and thoughtful dialogues among the characters. The amount of action in the plot seems just sufficient to provide a scaffold for conversations where people have space to be uncommonly honest and unguarded with one another, even when they are lying or posturing. The acting is uniformly excellent and rises to the level of the writing -- there are no false notes, although there are some tantalizing loose ends.

The photography and editing are also quite good at creating an atmosphere that is reflective and somewhat detached, complementing the quiet intensity of the characters' interactions. The detachment is amplified at several points where the film seems to incorporate documentary elements or certainly creates that kind of feeling.

I wasn't always crazy about the music and how it was invoked, but this is a minor quibble that many may not share.

I dispute another reviewer's assertion that this movie was conceived of as "awards bait." In my opinion, there's too much heart and honesty to this movie for it to be categorized as cynical or manipulative -- certainly no more than with any other movie that seeks to tell an important story in a compelling and beautiful way. And this film takes plenty of risks that I can't imagine going over well in increasingly sectarian and puritanical India.

I highly recommend "All We Imagine as Light."