DRAMA; 1hr 58 min (Hindi, Malayalam and Marathi with subtitles)
STARRING: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam

Moving on: Kusruti
The city of Mumbai beats with a ceaseless pulse that in Payal Kapadia’s debut feature looks almost dreamlike as the writer-director steps gently into the unremarkable routines of three hospital staffers. Prabha (Kusruti) is an unsmiling head nurse, closed book Anu (Prabha) is her fellow nurse and flatmate Parvaty (Kadam) works resignedly in the kitchen, and every nuance of their days is conveyed by the supreme ensemble cast with an expressiveness that outshines words.
Shadowing the women through the urban hurly-burly, Kapadia and cinematographer Ranabir Das bring a soft sheen to its clamour. The roadblocks each character must confront, however, are as unyielding as cement. While being futilely wooed by an earnest doctor (Azees Nedumangad) with poetry and sweets, Prabha is saddened by the absence of the partner she never had the chance to get to know: her husband of an arranged marriage, now far, far away in a factory in Germany. Anu, a Hindu, is in a so-called secret relationship with a young Muslim man (Hridhu Haroon) that the other nurses of course are well aware of, while Parvaty, a widow with few defences, is being summarily evicted from her flat.
When Parvaty moves back to her village, Prabha and Anu make the trip there with her to lend a hand in what becomes a voyage of rediscovery. If Mumbai truly is a “city of illusions,” then Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix–winning vision of it is a gift of thanks to the beauty of belief.
