Iti Mrinalini (Hindi 2010)

Cast: Aparna Sen, Konkona Sen Sharma, Rajat Kapoor, Priyanshu Chatterjee

The acclaimed mother-daughter duo paint a sensitive portrayal in this 2-hr biopic. Mrinalini (Aparna Sen) a veteran Bengali actress burdened by her growing sense of neglect and loneliness, senses that life has no more purpose in store than suffering and faded youth. She undertakes to end her life of her own volition. As she sits down to write a message for those living, she reflects on her past. Her memories flash back to the days when as a bright-eyed, naive young woman (Konkana Sen Sharma), she sought to escape the confines of her life to find security and love.
That she happened to have turned out a successful actor seems a by-product to the plot and to the character's perception. She falls in love with a very married director hoping somewhere deep down to have the family she desires only to realize that years down things remain unchanged. Still she finds fulfilling love in her daughter that makes up for her disappointment otherwise in love. In a twist of fate, however, this happiness is shortlived.
In the following years, she shuns the limelight and the stage. Even as a recluse the same desires that burnished with fervor in her youth haunt her now.
Although the film is of an actress, it doesn't dwell on the peculiarities exclusive to the domain of stardom but distills the emotions and sensibilities of a woman in her journey through life. As in a novel cleverly translated to film, events unfold leaving the character's self-discovery open to the viewer's interpretation.
Aparna Sen has thrown so much heart and soul into the telling that there lingers an air of honesty with no exaggeration merely to elicit a sensation. Notably, the movie infuses the frames with the women in an array of sarees, bindis, splendid in the colorful beauty akin to the Indian skin and temperament, which in itself is a treat to savor these days.