-it is notoriously tough to adapt a great book into a fabulous script but for once this is fluidly established by a gifted script writer and embellished with a truly dignified performance by the female lead-Hema Malini who plays a widow who after her husband's gruesome murder is obliged to marry his younger brother according to the religious tradition.
the sensitive story is subtly executed with intelligence rather then melodrama and the supporting cast is just as good ,yet the soul of the movie lies in the pragmatic ,bereaving widow who has to take a tough decision and that is where the strength of the story lies as she is torn between the past and future but has to act to save her children's present ,a classic book made into a sensitive drama that will haunt you for a long time after it has ended ,the songs are kept to a minimal and there are no clichés as in mainstream Bollywood movies ,i am sure the Rajinder Singh Bedi will be very pleased with this marvellous adaptation which does full justice to his literary classic.this is a movie for people with a taste for the unusual and deserves a special distinction by all criterion .a culturally correct setting enhances it's authenticity as it portrays rural India with painstaking details and the art direction and cinematography capture the picturesque fields as fluidly as the subtle expressions on the faces of its ensemble cast .a must see for the connoisseurs .ultimately it is a tribute to the matriarchal spirit of the great Indian womanhood and a triumph for the female -oriented intelligent cinema ,Rishi Kapoor brings a passive frustration to the role of the younger man who has to accept the older woman as his wife ,but the transformation is subtle and the quiet acceptance by the children of their father's role by their uncle is very tasteful yet truly heart-rending at times ,but this is a movie which shows the ugly side of life which describes the truth of compromises and the facts are rather bitter ,which might explain the failure of this classic commercially in India . the controversial nature of the religious tradition might be blamed but the fact it is widely practised for the pragmatic side of the convenience to preserve the familial structure cannot be denied . Poonam Dhillon played the tragic girl who has to give up her first love as he is now bound to a woman she had adored secretly as a mother figure ,the complexities here are phenomenal but the director is gifted indeed and he is able to make great cinema out of great literature . it is sad that this movie missed out on tax exemption as well as national awards as no other work of art is more deserving of those rewards then this gem cultural representation which is almost revolutionary in concept and execution .
