All We Imagine as Light

The three women in the movie live in Mumbai, have a place to live, a salary and are financially independent. They are lower middle class but not poor.

Mumbai seems messy and dreary in the rains, but that's how the city is. In this movie, the three heroines are at a crossroad in their lives and need to make choices. Can they free themselves from the burden of expectations and take the next step?

Prabha is still committed to her marriage with a man who has deserted her for a job abroad. At night she hugs a rice cooker he's sent her from Germany. There is a doctor who is attracted to her for her gravitas but she gives him a brush off. Then an incident on the beach makes her re-evaluate her choice. She decides maybe it's time for a change.

Parvathy is a widow who lives alone in a one-room flat which is being redeveloped. Those who have title deeds in her building are being given new flats, but she has no documents, though she's lived there for 22 years. With the builder cutting her electricity and threatening legal action, Pavathy decides she's had enough and moves back to her village by the sea. She's the first to make a conscious life altering choice.

Anu is in love with a boy who loves her back in equal measure. Their dilemma is that they're from different religions and know their families won't accept them as a couple. They make love by the sea anyway, another conscious, happy choice.

The characters look unhappy a lot but that's the burden of their dilemmas. They have to decide whether to do what's expected of them or what will make them happy. In the end, they do what makes them happy. I thought it was an upbeat movie.