'Everything is Fine' is a beautiful short in which Asha, a middle-aged mother and wife, visits her young daughter and confides in her a most profound sentiment: she no longer wishes to remain married to Natasha's father. What's interesting is that no glaring fault is apparently found with the husband, who seems a pretty decent man overall. But does it really matter? To Natasha it does; she is unable to accept or even take this decision seriously. Her parents' marriage has always been a given, distorting it would be breaking the unbreakable, even though it would hardly affect her own life now as a grown woman.
What lies at the heart of Asha's decision is what she clearly sees as years of unfulfilling marriage. She has clearly been subjugated her entire life to a man she may not love and who she would not want to spend old age with. At the very least, she has decided to stop compromising. I mention above the absence of apparent fault in the man's personality, but delicate nuances hint at their relationship. In one scene, the husband requests a cup of tea from his daughter because his wife is in the shower - he's clearly not going to prepare it for himself possibly because of a deeply ingrained patriarchal mindset.
The film provides a commentary on the institution of marriage, particularly in societies where divorce is unheard of at the social level, much less at an older age. But life is life, says the film, and no one should ever think it's too late to improve it. Everything is Fine is exactly the kind of story suited for the short-film format, but it was so good that I was left wishing for more. The message behind it was efficiently conveyed and even though I hoped to see a more cyclic resolution to the conflict it presented, it was a delightful episode, wonderfully well shot, with strong visuals, set design and background music.
Seema Pahwa, an actress who can hardly go wrong, is remarkable as the troubled Asha. Her performance is a portrait of self-discovery and liberation, and it's so good that it doesn't even matter if the divorce will ever take place. Her path to self-love has begun, and she has even managed to teach her daughter a valuable lesson. Palomi Ghosh is highly competent as the initially critical yet growingly understanding daughter. Sidharth Bhardwaj is also excellent as the father. Overall, 'Everything is Fine' is a melancholic but impossibly optimistic film which ends up as an inspiring and rewarding experience.
