Three Of Us movie review: An evocative, moving ode to memory and remembrance

Three people are at the heart of this film: long-married, Mumbai-based couple Shailaja and Dipankar Patankar (Shah and Kirkire), and the former’s childhood friend-who-could-have-been-more Pradeep Kamat (Ahlawat). On a visit to the small Konkan town where she spent a few formative years, Shailaja seeks out Pradeep, and as they retrace their steps – in the home where she lived with her parents and a sister, in the school where she was one of the bright sparks, in the temple where she learnt Bharatanatyam, and a mystical grove– old wounds, buried deep, rise to the surface. Some details in this three-hander will invariably remind you of Celine Song’s ‘Past Lives’, but this ode to memory and remembrance made me feel more.

Each of these forays, in which the trio traverse lanes and bends of the lush, green landscape (a fort reminding you of ‘Killa’, Arun’s lovely debut film) are like maps which reveal even as they conceal– the familiar pattern spouses fall into, with the old ‘friend’ and the wistful what-might-have-been question, coming into focus in one aching, climactic stretch.

On the one hand, there is the understandable discomfort of a spouse encountering a stranger who knew his wife before he did, someone she has never mentioned before, but someone she has quite evidently never forgotten, even as she is on the cusp of losing all her memories; on the other is that same man, the one who was left behind, who has made a life with a loving woman, and two daughters. Ahlawat doesn’t put a foot wrong, even if he is a bit of stretch as a man from the Konkan region: this is his second pitch-perfect performance after ‘Jaane Jaan’. Kirkire is spot-on too, as a man who sells life insurance, while being fully aware of the vagaries of that very same ‘zindagi’.

Shefali Shah, the centre of this triangle, treads the fine balance between underlining her part, and managing the delicate touches which her character requires, and mostly manages to pull it off. There are some places in which you can see her calling attention to what she is doing, but the overall writing overrides these bits, and you are left with a story which is from the heart, and nestles in our hearts.

Memories are wonderful. Some things you are better off forgetting.

Three Of Us movie cast: Shefali Shah, Jaideep Ahlawat, Swanand Kirkire
Three Of Us movie director: Avinash Arun
Three Of Us movie rating: Three stars