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‘Shadowbox’ Review: A Restrained Indian Drama That Seldom Coheres, Despite Its Great Performances
'Shadowbox' directors Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi try to tackle everything from class to gender to PTSD, but rarely find balance.
The tale of a family of three strained by a father’s odd behavior — owing to what appears to be PTSD — the neorealist Bengali- and Hindi-language drama hints at numerous ideas in the realm of gender, administrative power and the woes of the Indian working class. She plays the overqualified housemaid Maya, an educated woman doing her best to make ends meet by serving tea and performing other household odd jobs in order to raise her teenage son, Debu (Sayan Karmakar), in the suburbs of Kolkatta (formerly Calcutta). That Sundar often occupies the corners of the frame (especially in scenes he shares with Maya) speaks directly to his outward sense of remove and dissociation — from society, and from himself — but the result is a sympathetic portrayal at a distance, despite Bisht’s tremendous efforts to engender empathy.
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