All We Imagine as Light

alongside each other, not seeking a revolution or change, but simply become each other’s practical helpers, no speeches required. Prabha agrees to cover Anu’s rent, because being in her company gives her a sort of strength to perhaps pursue a romantic liaison of her own with a doctor at the hospital. She helps Parvathy get legal counsel because her body knows the pain of loneliness. While teaching young nurses at the hospital, who gag at the sight of placenta, she sternly but kindly asks them to toughen up quick. Prabha doesn’t even know when she became the embodiment of the very buttress she probably never had. And because kindness is infectious when you’re young and impressionable, Anu has started to pay it forward, by treating her own patients with care and genuine concern, despite the depressing hospital setting. For most of the final act, the women go to Parvathy’s village, a sleepy area near the sea, and suddenly the screen sort of expands, filling with brightness. The title “All We Imagine As Light '' comes alive as one marvels at Ranabir Das’s cinematography and his ability to control the viewers' breathing patterns. Parvathy’s little Mumbai kholi, jiski chaaro deewarein bhi nahi dikhti hain ek frame mein, is replaced by a house where you can almost feel a breeze flow through. Prabha’s apartment, where the brightest thing is a shiny new electric rice cooker, is replaced by the beach, where she actually even manages to save a drowning man’s life, and Anu manages to have the encounter with her boyfriend, the narrow lanes of Mumbai had denied her. Hridhu Haroon as the boyfriend Shiaz is the perfect wholesome king bhagwaan har chaahne waale ko de.