Should authors adapt their own books? Shamim Sarif’s tome-to-flick tale of budding passion between two Indian women in ’50s South Africa suggests not: her stiff, stilted, soap-froth spin on forbiddenromance clichés views like a lifeless addendum to her novel.
Lisa Ray is a put-upon wife whose feelings flicker for a feminist café owner (Sheetal Sheth). Racial and sexual tensions are many, but the leads merely play to repressed/forthright type and Sarif’s soft-focus direction mutes passion.
Intimacy, nuance and emotional punch are conspicuous only by their absence. Dreary.
Kevin Harley
