Two large teardrops roll down Raima Sen’s innocent face as she turns away from the camera. Sad Bengali music plays in the background and the unhappy scene sets up the perfect opportunity for some tears to roll down the audience members’ faces as well…But…wait a tick…wasn’t there just a sad, mournful scene a couple of seconds ago?

Rituparno Ghosh’s Choker Bali is beautifully filmed and has brilliant performances but was quite disappointing on the whole, at least for this reviewer. The entire movie seemed to build up to nothing, and one felt quite let down by the end of the film. Mind you, despite reading many negative reviews I went out and bought the DVD for the sole purpose of seeing Ash (Aishwarya Rai) shine bright. Hearing that she was in the movie also had inspired me to read the book (Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Choker Bali’) a month before it came out on DVD. Ash, however, falls flat on her perfect, unflawed face along with the movie.

Rai plays Binodini, the wily, vivacious widow who lives with and befriends Ashalata (played by Raima Sen), a young naïve newlywed who happened to marry the man who had earlier outright rejected Binodini for marriage. Mahendra, played by talented Prosenjit, is the somewhat spoiled husband who quickly falls under Binodini’s enchanting spell.

How, you ask, does Binodini end up in the home of Mahendra and Asha? Well, Mahendra’s controlling, quite dramatic mother, Rajalaxmi (played by Lily Chakraborty) leaves the house in a huff after seeing her son completely under the spell of his new wife. She returns to her hometown and meets a widowed Binodini, who impresses her with her worldly knowledge and household abilities. Rajalaxmi decides to bring the young widow back home with her and Binodini becomes the center of the household’s attention. Behari (Tota Roychowdhury) plays Mahendra’s levelheaded friend who is always slightly wary of Binodini’s sharp tongue and manipulations.

Binodini is well portrayed by Aishwarya as the headstrong young girl who refuses to take what fate has dealt her and rebels against the norms set for widows by society. Raima Sen plays the inexperienced Ashalata naturally and matches Binodini’s wiles and cleverness with simplicity and honesty. Tota Roychowdhury and Prosenjit play best friends not too badly and portray the slight competitive attitude they feel towards each other despite their love for one another. I couldn’t help but feel annoyed at Lily Chakraborty’s character of Rajalaxmi and her overly dramatic ways. However, her character matches that of Rajalaxmi in the book almost perfectly.

The camerawork was quite exceptional and some scenes were shot so beautifully that I could forgive ol’ Rabrindrinath for writing the story…for a couple of minutes at least. Although the acting was superb and so was the filmmaking, the movie was, to put it simply, bad because of its unimpressive story. My dislike for the novel Choker Bali probably has a lot to do with the fact that I read a translated version and my dislike for the movie might have to do with my watching a Bengali dubbed-to-Hindi version with English subtitles. Still, I feel as though the story was too simplistic in it’s pretensions of complexity and didn’t capture the essence of human nature too well.

As a quote read in the beginning of the movie said, Rabridrinath Tagore always regretted the ending he gave to his classic novel Choker Bali. However, one can’t say that the ending given in the movie is much better.

Nina Muralidhar, 15, is a sophomore at the Lexington High School, MA. She published an interview with Ms. Aishwarya Rai in India Abroad earlier this year. A voracious reader and an avid Bollywood buff, Nina is also a Ash Rai fan!

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