Review: 'All We Imagine As Light' is a beautiful tale of women in modern Mumbai, finding joy despite setbacks and hardships

The Indian drama “All We Imagine As Light” is a tenderly rendered look at women striving to make it in the heart of one of the world’s most fascinating cities, Mumbai.

Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) are both Malayali, one of the many ethnic groups in India. They are roommates, and nurses at a Mumbai hospital. Their personalities are quite different, though. Prabha, the older of the two, is quiet and pragmatic; Anu is much more outgoing.

Prabha is married, though her marriage was arranged when she was younger, and her husband has lived in Germany for years — and the last time they spoke was over the phone a year ago. So when Prabha suddenly receive a rice cooker in the mail, one made in Germany, she suspects it’s come from her husband.

Meanwhile, Anu secretly is having a romance with a Muslim boyfriend, Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), and they search all over for some place where they can be alone and have sex. 

At the hospital, Prabha tries to help Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), one of the cooks, who’s fighting to keep her apartment from a builder who wants to evict her and build a skyscraper. But because all the papers are in the name of her late husband, Parvaty can’t prove a legal claim to the apartment. Dejected, she moves back to her rural village, Ratnagiri, and Prabha and Anu help her relocate.

Writer-director Payal Kapadia, making her feature debut, divides her movie neatly into acts. In the first act, she shows Mumbai as a polyglot metropolis, filled with people who have ventured from across India to find prosperity, happiness or even just a decent job. In the second half, in Parvaty’s village, Kapadia captures another side of India — the scenic rural part of the country, just as complex as the city.

Kapadia also captures, with the help of her engaging cast, the spectrum of attitudes of women in this beautiful country, striving to build a small piece of happiness amid the economic, religious and patriarchal limitations placed on them. These women live hard lives, sometimes frustratingly so, but find moments for themselves and with each other to celebrate their shared joy.

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‘All We Imagine As Light’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, January 24, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably R for some nudity, sexuality and language. Running time: 118 minutes; in Malayalam, Hindi and Marathi, with subtitles.