Synopsis
In a barren, arranged marriage to an amateur swami who seeks enlightenment through celibacy, Radha's life takes an irresistible turn when her beautiful young sister-in-law seeks to free herself from the confines of her own loveless marriage.
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Cast
- Nandita DasSita
- Shabana AzmiRadha
- Javed JaffreyJatin
- Kulbhushan KharbandaAshok
- Kushal RekhiBiji
- Ranjit ChowdhryMundu
- Karishma JhalaniYoung Radha
- Alice PoonJulie
- Ram Gopal BajajSwamiji
- Vinay PathakGuide at Taj Mahal
Recommendations
- 88
ReelViews
Mehta has created a pair of memorable characters who are easy to empathize with, and who gratifyingly are never transformed from flesh-and-blood individuals into mere symbols. - 80
Chicago Reader
Writer-director Deepa Mehta fuses the soap-opera elements of her plot -- which reveals one sexual secret after another of the variously betrayed, selfish, and self-actualizing members of the two couples' New Delhi household--into profound drama. - 75
Chicago Sun-Times
The two women are very beautiful, gentle and sad together, and the movie is all but stolen by Chowdhry, as the servant who lurks constantly in the background providing, with his very body language, a comic running commentary. - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
The richness of characters make this movie shine. It's just that, somehow, a certain sense of fire is missing. - 75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
The film lacks flow, unfolding in a rat-a-tat series of short, artfully lensed scenes -- individually nice but collectively jerky. - 70
The New York Times
Written and directed by Deepa Mehta, this glossy melodrama, mixing references to Indian mysticism and the epic poetry of the "Ramayana" with late-20th-century feminism, teeters unsteadily between sociology and soap opera. - 67
Austin Chronicle
For a film with such volatile subject matter, the performances are subdued and naturalistic. Fire burns with a rare flame. - 60
Empire
Audacious, yet sensitive, Fire may shock traditionalists but is the sort of film that ought to win Indian cinema a whole new audience.
