Water (2006) Movie Review, Cast & Crew, Film Summary

I was not, frankly, very impressed. It’s visually accomplished, to be sure; Deepa Mehta’s a very talented picture-maker. But she should have sacked herself as screenwriter. The script is cliched and melodramatic without ever taking the leap of idiot passion that makes melodrama work. We’ve got a bunch of sub-Dickensian tropes. Plucky girl child stuck in the work’use. Fat sleazy villainness and her hissing effeminate sidekick. Comely wench with lustrous locks driven to suicide by the cruel injustices of the world (not Dickens; Kate Chopin). Conveniently studly young doctor/reformer/poetry-quoting boyfriend. I think if this was a Hollywood film – I could imagine it transposed to a Civil Rights-era setting without any difficulty – we’d be laughing at it. I’ve come to the conclusion that when a modern movie reaches a scene where the baddies cut off the heroine’s hair, the filmmakers have officially run out of ideas. The interpersonal scenes all have familiar beats, and the drama is entirely predictable. It does achieve a depth of feeling that kept me watching, particularly in Seema Biswa’s lovely performance. I haven’t see her in anything since Bandit Queen, but she has a constrained emotionalism that knocks the plastic leads flat.