Movie Review for Water

Summary: Set in 1938 Colonial India, against Mahatma Gandhi's rise to power, an 8-year-old Chuyia is widowed and sent to a home where Hindu widows must live in penitence. Chuyia¿s feisty presence deeply affects the lives of the other residents, including a young widow, who falls for a Gandhian idealist.

                         Reviews of Water
By Marcy Dermansky of About.com (7/0)
            [C]aptivating from the very first frame to the last.

By Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of Atlanta Journal-Constitution (7/0)
            A brave and powerful film.

By Marjorie Baumgarten of Austin Chronicle (7/0)
            Beautiful yet sad, a tale drenched in centuries of stagnant, holy water that cleanses the body bu...

By Shlomo Schwartzberg of Boxoffice Magazine (4/3)
            Mehta's conventional direction fails to do proper justice to this disturbing reality.

By Lawrence Toppman of Charlotte Observer (7/0)
            In an elemental way ... the film always works.

By Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times (7/0)
             The best elements of Water involve the young girl and the experiences seen through her eyes.

                         Reviews of Water
By Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times (7/0)
            The film is lovely in the way Satyajit Ray's films are lovely. It sees poverty and deprivation as...

By Michael Wilmington of Chicago Tribune (7/0)
            Like India's greatest filmmaker, Satyajit Ray, Mehta is a great pure-hearted storyteller and a ma...

By Owen Gleiberman of Chicago Tribune (7/0)
            Completing this movie was a heroic act, yet Water, the final chapter in Mehta's feminist tril...

By Peter T. Chattaway of Christianity Today (7/0)
            Full of lush, fluid cinematography and evocative music, Water is an important look at a social in...

By Jules Brenner of Cinema Signals (7/0)
            Though it's a story told with feminist sensitivity, it's also the most relevant perspective for s...

By Rubin Safaya of Cinemalogue.com (7/0)
            ...you're an observer to a real dialogue and not merely a viewer in an audience watching a script...

                         Reviews of Water
By Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid (7/0)
            Here's yet another example of people confusing an honorable message with a good movie.

By Les Wright of culturevulture.net (7/0)
            'Water' glows from rich and natural lighting, warm and radiant colors, and powerful symbolic imag...

By Robert Denerstein of Denver Rocky Mountain News (7/0)
            It levels its criticisms within a climate of respect, a combination that creates a work of true h...

By Eric D. Snider of EricDSnider.com (7/0)
            The film's visuals hold almost as much power as its story does.

By Eugene Novikov of Film Blather (7/0)
            Compelling in the way it gradually opens up, beginning as the story of a little girl's plight, we...

By Rex Roberts of Film Journal International (7/0)
            Perhaps the adversity of making the movie allowed the filmmakers and actors to empathize more ful...

                         Reviews of Water
By Chris Cabin of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            Underneath all the ritual and religion, Water is a simple love vs. faith story.

By Chris Cabin of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            artful in showing the positive side of belief and the negative responses to freedom and free thin...

By MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher (7/0)
            Every moment that is exquisite here... is tinged with a profound melancholy... For every beautifu...

By Rick Groen of Globe and Mail (7/0)
            Both the plot and its symbolism are transparently basic, yet Mehta handles them with a quiet, lyr...

By Eric Lurio of Greenwich Village Gazette (7/0)
            It's a heartbreaking film, and we can see why the powers that be in India are so angry.

By Peter Canavese of Groucho Reviews (7/0)
            Detailed and graced with irreverent humor and fine performances, Mehta's film deals powerful blow...

                         Reviews of Water
By Kirk Honeycutt of Hollywood Reporter (7/0)
            Like Bandit Queen and Maya, Water bravely delves into outmoded social traditions of India, thus r...

By Bruce Westbrook of Houston Chronicle (7/0)
            Below its surface, Water isn't about religion, politics or even India. It's about timeless and un...

By Jay Antani of I.E. Weekly (6/1)
            a tribute to all the dispossessed in our world and an amplification of their silent screams

By Bruce Kirkland of Jam! Movies (7/0)
            An exquisite drama brimming with life and laughter and great tenderness and wrenching tragedy.

By S. James Wegg of JWR (7/0)
            ... the incidence of violence against women at home or in institutions give Mehta's 1938 tale a c...

By James Sanford of Kalamazoo Gazette (7/0)
            ... gorgeous and heartbreaking... full of glorious, unforgettably pretty images... But they do no...

                         Reviews of Water
By Andrea Chase of Killer Movie Reviews (7/0)
            an unforgettable film of devastating beauty

By David Chute of L.A. Weekly (7/0)
            ... hitches some of the most irresistible conventions of Hindi movie melodrama to an earnest agen...

By Robert Roten of Laramie Movie Scope (7/0)
            One of the best films of the year.

By Bob Strauss of Los Angeles Daily News (7/0)
            ... politically provocative ...

By Kevin Thomas of Los Angeles Times (7/0)
            Mehta has inspired her cast to rise from one dramatic challenge to another, and her film is charg...

By Matt Pais of Metromix.com (7/0)
            Water doesn't fully capture the pain and hardship of these repressed women, but it's a powerful s...

                         Reviews of Water
By Rene Rodriguez of Miami Herald (7/0)
            Unfolds with the clean, simple lines of a fairy tale, and if the characters initially seem to be ...

By Duane Dudek of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (7/0)
            A heartbreaking prism through which to understand the absurdity and cruelty of this practice.

By Jeff Strickler of Minneapolis Star Tribune (7/0)
            Packs a punch that is difficult to parry.

By Susan Granger of Modamag.com (7/0)
            Haunting and outraged, it's a compelling cry against inhumanity.

By Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) (7/0)
            For those who can accept Mehta's approach, it's a remarkably rewarding film.

By Marty Mapes of Movie Habit (7/0)
            Tedious as a high-school health-class movie

                         Reviews of Water
By Ted Murphy of Murphy's Movie Reviews (7/0)
            Surprisingly, not much has changed in the last 70 years. The tradition of sequestering widows con...

By Jeannette Catsoulis of New York Times (7/0)
            ...flows with the simplicity of a fairy tale.

By Gene Seymour of Newsday (7/0)
            ... Deepa Mehta's controversial new epic is driven by a scorching urgency whose intensity exceeds...

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (7/0)
            A lovely and compelling film.

By Tasha Robinson of Onion AV Club (7/0)
            It could really use a dose of Fire's heat.

By Roger Moore of Orlando Sentinel (7/0)
            Mehta prevailed, and this scandalous, beautiful and very moving tale of repression, hope and a tr...

                         Reviews of Water
By Steve Schneider of Orlando Weekly (7/0)
            All the pat plotting and discourse in the world can't extinguish the fire of a film this well-int...

By Dennis Schwartz of Ozus' World Movie Reviews (7/0)
            Controversial for exposing the rigidity of the Hindu religion.

By Cynthia Fuchs of PopMatters (7/0)
            as Chuyia sees this simple pleasure loom so crucially for Auntie, the girl's face shows that she ...

By Louis Proyect of rec.arts.movies.reviews (7/0)
            Powerful tale that unfortunately fails to provide any kind of real historical context for the opp...

By Mark Pfeiffer of Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema (7/0)
            Water simmers at the injustice heaped upon these women because of religious tradition.

By Timothy Knight of Reel.com (7/0)
            An exhilarating, intensely moving film of bold, unwavering vision, Water brings Meehta's Elementa...

                         Reviews of Water
By Laura Clifford of Reeling Reviews (7/0)
            ...an involving, moving piece of work with the gloss of an old studio epic.

By Jeffrey Chen of ReelTalk Movie Reviews (7/0)
            Becomes another round of ammo in the argument that a society's unwillingness to adapt to the chan...

By James Berardinelli of ReelViews (7/0)
            Taken as a whole, Water presents a damning view of this aspect of fundamental Hinduism.

By Ruthe Stein of San Francisco Chronicle (7/0)
            ...an elegiac lament for a sorrowful chapter of Indian history.

By William Arnold of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (7/0)
            ...an authentic visual epic: a grandly designed and photographed...

By Moira MacDonald of Seattle Times (7/0)
            Mehta's film is courageous and reticent, a shout masquerading as a whisper.

                         Reviews of Water
By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of Spirituality and Practice (7/0)
            One of the best movies of the year with its extraordinary depiction of plight of Indian widows an...

By Thomas Peyser of Style Weekly (Richmond, VA) (7/0)
            The movie's sentimental vision rests on the flimsy idea that 'real' religion never sanctions crue...

By Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone of TheMovieChicks.com (7/0)
            This is one of those great foreign films that you wish Hollywood would make so more people would ...

By John A. Nesbit of ToxicUniverse.com (7/0)
            Mehta's most powerful film to date

By Urban Cinefile Critics of Urban Cinefile (7/0)
            With none of the joyous zest for life we encountered in Fire, or the emotional power from Earth, ...

By Claudia Puig of USA Today (7/0)
            ...poignant and captivating...

                         Reviews of Water
By Eddie Cockrell of Variety (7/0)
            Deftly balancing epic sociopolitical scope with intimate human emotions, all polished to a high t...

By Bill Gallo of Village Voice (7/0)
            This work of gorgeous fury, about the virtual imprisonment of millions of Hindu widows in the yea...

By John Beifuss of Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            Both a high-minded glossy soap opera, in the tradition of a Darryl F. Zanuck forbidden-love potbo...

By Robert W. Butler of Kansas City Star (3/4) No reference
            It slowly builds in emotional power.

By Andrew Sarris of New York Observer (3/4) No reference
            Quite possibly the best picture of the year thus far, with no fewer than three of the most lumino...

By Kyle Smith of New York Post (3/4) No reference
            a simple female-oppression love story set in the 1930s with an unusually solid and interesting fo...

                         Reviews of Water
By Lisa Rose of Newark Star-Ledger (3/4) No reference
            Lyrical imagery is matched with subtle performances.

By Jack Garner of Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (3/4) No reference
            Mehta has made a film of jaw-dropping beauty and eye-opening insight. It's not to be missed.

By Chris Hewitt (St. Paul) of St. Paul Pioneer Press (3/4) No reference
            [Mehta's] graceful direction keeps Water from feeling like medicine.

By Angela Baldassarre of Sympatico.ca (3/4) No reference
            With “Water,” a subdued but moving and emotionally powerful masterpiece, Deepa Mehta ends her “El...

By Susan Walker of Toronto Star (3/4) No reference
            Mehta has concocted a potent mix of politics, historical conflict, religion and philosophical que...

By Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of Atlanta Journal-Constitution (6/1) Not Reachable
            Ebbs and flows with devastating truths and profound insights into the hypocrisy of extremism in a...

                         Reviews of Water
By James Berardinelli of ReelViews (7/1) Not Reachable
            ...explores the exploitation of women in some societies, and how difficult life can become for th...

Movie Distributors

Production Companies
Deepa Mehta Films
Canadian Television Fund
Harold Greenberg Fund (aka Le Fonds Harold Greenberg)
Astral Media
Super Ecran
The Movie Network
Echo Lake Entertainment
Noble Nomad Pictures Ltd.
Telefilm Canada

Movie Studios