Starring: Aamir Khan, Prateik, Monica Dogra
Rating: 
Some movies knock you out with a punch, others gently lay you down, soothe your fevered brow and lull you into a dream. Movies about Mumbai tend to do the former. But Kiran Rao's deeply personal Dhobi Ghat takes you by the hand, leads you to its doorstep and then leaves you to gawk, with pleasure. At Shai Edulji's (Monica Dogra) unknowingly selfish world, where her little indulgence can be someone else's life-altering experience. At Arun's (Aamir Khan) self-absorbed existence, divided between his art and his brooding. At Yasmin's (Kriti Malhotra) video letters to her brother in Malihabad, full of yearning but edged with sadness.
And of Munna's (Prateik) silent ambition, evident in the glistening worked-upon body he admires in a mirror dotted with Salman Khan cut outs. We know enough from Alejandro Inarritu's works that these separate characters will eventually have overlapping lives, but when they do, it is not with a bang but with the steady shimmer of Mumbai's ever-present rain. Rao's actors are fresh, even Khan, who shocks us mildly by using words like f*** and a******. It's an acutely observed and unhurried film. Munna bathing by the side of the railway tracks under cover of darkness, the colours on Arun's canvas melting into the meat frying in the stalls of Mohammad Ali road, begum Akhtar's voice filling the void of a flat, the domestic's daughter proudly reciting tennyson's brook. Arun's drawing the one he's falling in love with, Shai's photographing the one she's becoming obsessed with. One woman's art is another man's reason for living.
