The year is 1938, and Mahatma Gandhi's groundbreaking philosophies are sweeping across India, but 8-year-old Chuyia, newly widowed, must go to live with other outcast widows on an ashram. Her presence transforms the ashram as she befriends two of her compatriots.
Directed by Deepa Mehta
widow
site of pilgrimage
hinduism
mahatma gandhi
varanasi
child bride
woman director
Trailer
IMDB
N/A
Letterboxd
3.7 / 5
Where to Watch
Cast
Lisa Ray
Kalyani
John Abraham
Narayan
Seema Biswas
Shakuntala
Waheeda Rehman
Bhagavati, Narayan's Mother
Vinay Pathak
Rabindra
Rishma Malik Scott
Snehalata
Manorama
Madhumati
Raghubir Yadav
Gulabi
Kulbhushan Kharbanda
Sadananda
Crew
Deepa Mehta
Director
Deepa Mehta
Screenplay
A.R. Rahman
Original Music Composer
Giles Nuttgens
Director of Photography
Dilip Mehta
Associate Producer
Anurag Kashyap
Dialogue
Mychael Danna
Additional Soundtrack
Dolly Ahluwalia
Costume Design
Uma Da Cunha
Casting
Popular Reviews
20 reviews
FoofiePRO
7.0★ · 02/12/26
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MopudPRO
7.0★ · 03/30/25
Water shows how tradition, instead of protecting people, ends up trapping them.
Water shows how tradition, instead of protecting people, ends up trapping them.
Ayeshoo
narayan: why is your faith so strong? shakuntala, smiling softly: i don't know.
tragic. across all cultures and religions, why must women and girls suffer?
narayan: why is your faith so strong? shakuntala, smiling softly: i don't know.
tragic. across all cultures and religions, why must women and girls suffer?
rick
8.3★ · 02/27/25
The production made me bawl my eyes out i won’t lie. The minimum dialogs making such a large impact. Reminds me of a Satyajit Ray type of performance. Also the fact that the film set in India was attacked speaks volume about how the mass felt about this movie.
The production made me bawl my eyes out i won’t lie. The minimum dialogs making such a large impact. Reminds me of a Satyajit Ray type of performance. Also the fact that the film set in India was attacked speaks volume about how the mass felt about this movie.
Zack Qureshi
9.0★ · 10/28/20
really beautiful and deeply tragic on a couple of levels I need to do more reading about gandhi because I was a little bit uncomfy with his sort of deified presence in this movie that extends over the part where he explicitly shows up idk his anti colonial stuff and passive resistance are obv hugely influential and important but having read about his relatively recent historical reappraisal due to racist comments and misogyny etc my opinion of him is kind of varied I know John Abraham from Dhoom which is a ridiculous Point Break -esque movie so seeing him in this was kinda trippy lol but he’s very hot and he’s like a woke intellectual in this I’m into itI watched the first like half hour of this yesterday (10/28) before class and then finished it tonight in a totally batshit double feature with Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem that was fun
really beautiful and deeply tragic on a couple of levels I need to do more reading about gandhi because I was a little bit uncomfy with his sort of deified presence in this movie that extends over the part where he explicitly shows up idk his anti colonial stuff and passive resistance are obv hugely influential and important but having read about his relatively recent historical reappraisal due to racist comments and misogyny etc my opinion of him is kind of varied I know John Abraham from Dhoom which is a ridiculous Point Break -esque movie so seeing him in this was kinda trippy lol but he’s very hot and he’s like a woke intellectual in this I’m into itI watched the first like half hour of this yesterday (10/28) before class and then finished it tonight in a totally batshit double feature with Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem that was fun
