Review: Raj Mundrha is unknown in this country, well that is to
mainstream movies.
The reason is that for the most part he does pornography, which,
while
profitable, is ignored by critics because it's, well, porn, and
in the age of video and
DVD, never gets into theaters.
On occasion, however,
he feels the urge to do something socially
responsible,
and in this case has done what might be called a glorified
movie-of-the-week
about spousal abuse with genuine movie stars in it. The results
are
surprisingly good.
The film begins with Pujabi-Brithish housewife Kirnjit Ahluwalia
(Aishwarya
Rai) setting fire to her husband Deepak(Naveen Andrews), who, as
we learn in
excruciating detail, would beat the crap out of her all the time
during their
ten year marriage.
Admitting that she did it to the police, Kirnjit is given a
public defender
named Miriam (Rebecca Pidgeon), who informs her that because
even though she
was traumatized by her husband that night, the fact that it was
more than two
hours after the final abuse that she tried to kill him, she
cannot use
provocation as a defense in the trial, a charge which is raised
from assault to first
degree murder when Deepak dies from his burns.
Meanwhile, Kirinjit finds some allies, both expected and
unexpected. The
former is her cellmate Veronica Scott(Miranda Richardson), and
her posse, and the
latter are the he Southall Black Sisters, a no-profit feminist
legal aid
group, run by firebrand Radha Dalal(Nandita Das). With the help
of these two,
Kirinjit begins to blossom. But there's still the problem of
getting her out of
jail, which means filing an appeal and finding a decent legal
reason to make it
stick. So with some surprising help, SBS's solicitor Anil
Gupta(Raji James) and
famed barrister Lord Edward Foster (Robbie Coltrane) make legal
history.
The film is an inter-cutting of the main story and Kirnjit's
flashbacks,
showing how Deepak went from being a sweet, loving husband, to a
rotten, thuggish
abuser. While most of the cast are actually reasonably well
known to American
audiences [Said from “Lost” for crying out loud], the big
surprise is
Aishwarya Rai, who has been mostly in lightweight Bollywood
productions which never
get real release in the US. She's really good.
As I said at the beginning, this is just a glorified movie of
the week, with
the usual female empowerment feel-good plot with the standard
happy ending.
However, it is professionally done, and should be worth a look
when it arrives
on cable or Netflix.
Eric Lurio
Richard E. Schiff
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