MARGARITA, WITH A STRAW (Shonali Bose, India). 100 minutes. May 28, 9:30 pm, TIFF 2. Rating: NNN
In Shonali Bose‘s romantic drama, winner of the NETPAC award at last year’s TIFF, a young Delhi woman with cerebral palsy (Kalki Koechlin) leaves home to study in Manhattan and discovers an unexpected attraction to another woman (Sayani Gupta).
Bose’s plotting is a little heavy-handed – you can see the third-act tragedy coming from a mile away – but fine performances by virtually every cast member (especially Koechlin, an Indian cinema star who’s almost unrecognizable here) keep the pic going even as it buckles under the weight of its clichés.
