3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Mumbai — a crowded city where it’s easy to be lonely. A place to live that never quite feels like home. That’s the experience of three women in the engaging international feature All We Imagine as Light.

Prabha (Kani Kusruti) is head nurse at a hospital in Mumbai. She grew up elsewhere speaking Malayalam but has learned Hindi to thrive in the city.* She’s married, but her husband works in a factory in Germany. He hasn’t called in over a year.

Since she’s effectively single and rent is expensive, Prabha lives with Anu (Divya Prabhu), a junior nurse who’s also a transplant to the city. Anu has something of a reputation, since other hospital workers have seen her meeting up with a young man: her Muslim boyfriend Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon).

Prabha’s own beau — kindly Dr. Manoj (Azees Nedumangad) — knows she is married, but he waits for her after work to give her treats or share his poetry. The relationship is chaste, but it fills a void in Prabha’s life.

The arrival of a mysterious package shakes up Prabha’s routine and forces her to look at her life as it truly is. There’s no note in the package or a return address, only a fancy rice cooker — made in Germany.

Director Payal Kapadia lets these scenes in the city unfold at an unhurried pace, giving the audience time to understand the rhythms of the characters’ lives. It’s an enjoyable way to be carried along in a drama where the problems are important, but not necessarily urgent. It took a long time for Prabha’s life to become the way it is, after all.

She and Anu get an outside perspective when Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam, Laapataa Ladies) —  a widow who works at the hospital — asks for their help moving back to her village. Parvaty has lived in the same Mumbai apartment for two decades, but lacking the proper paperwork, re-developers are evicting her. It’s like she was never there at all.

Only in stepping outside the bounds of the city can any of the women see the way it constrains the very opportunities it promises to make possible: opportunities for love, belonging and happiness.

Outside of the city, the story loses a bit of momentum. Some of that is intentional, as it represents a new physical and mental space for the characters to inhabit, but it didn’t quite work for me. Kapadia has such a clear vision of life in the city that I was sad to let that go.

Kusruti, Prabhu, and Kadam are great individually, but especially together. Their performances are easy and natural, and that extends to their rapport. They are the heart of a movie that is very enjoyable to watch.

*One thing I’d love to see the film do before its US theatrical release is to code the English subtitles in different colors depending on which language is being spoken. The characters speak a mix of Hindi, Malayalam, and Marathi, and it would enhance the understanding of their relationships if it was easier for non-Indian-language speakers to tell who was speaking in what language with whom.

Links

• All We Imagine as Light at Wikipedia
• All We Imagine as Light at IMDb
• My review of Laapataa Ladies