Romancefest 2015: Water

This might be the most tragic movie of Romancefest 2015. The ending snuck up on me, and although I enjoyed most of the movie, if you had asked me halfway through if I thought it was going to make me cry, I would have said no. And then I would have been wrong!

Another female director, Deepa Mehta, takes on the story of widows in India circa 1938. Hindu widows had three options at the time: die with their husbands, go into exile and poverty or, if the families agree, marry their dead husbands' younger brother.

Unfortunately, these rules coexist with the practice of marrying people as children, so as the movie opens we learn that a 7-year-old girl (Sara Kariyawasam) has suddenly found herself widowed and now faces the prospect of living the rest of her life in a crumbling home where other (much older) widows live out their lives, alone.

Among the widows we have the bloated tyrant (Manorama) who pimps out the most beautiful widow (Lisa Ray) on the side. On the other end of the spectrum, there is the wisest and kindest of the widows (Seema Biswas) who becomes a mother figure to our 7 year old protagonist.

The romance comes in as a young, open-minded follower of Gandhi (John Abraham) falls in love with Ray and pursues a relationship with her even though it is unheard of for a widow to re-marry.

Discussing the ending and why it is so tragic and tear jerking would get into spoiler territory, so I don't want to do that. Instead I'll say the movie's beautiful to look at and recommend you check it out yourself. The powerful ending makes it worth it.