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With seven Golden Globe nominations leading the pack of films, this grand adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel is on the road to Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress and possibly Best Actor. Surprisingly, this romance is more intellectual than emotional, and often quite funny. The core theme is regret and how we react to it. Like the central idea of CACHE, what responsibility does an adult have for their wrong doings as a child, when those wrong doings have ruined the lives of others?

Thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) comes from wealth and fashions herself a great writer. She looks up to her beautiful, older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley, PRIDE & PREJUDICE) and has a crush on the gardener Robbie Turner (James McAvoy, THE KING OF SCOTLAND). Cecilia’s father paid for Robbie’s education, but though they were good friends as children, Cecilia barely spoke to Robbie while they attended the same school. On the day of her brother’s return home, Briony sees something between her sister and Robbie at a fountain that she doesn’t understand, and will play a devastatingly key role in a series of events that will forever change all three of their lives.

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Set in 1938, WATER chronicles the plight of widows in India, where they are forced to live exiled from the general public, begging for their existence. Some of them only children when they’re husbands die are doomed to a life on the outskirts of society with no real chance of bettering their situation. While their lives may seem grim, this hopeful film from director Deepa Mehta wishes for a better life and finds joy in simply living. For the filmmaker who endured years of government shut downs and death threats from Hindu extremists for making this film, its nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at last year’s Oscars is a glorious recognition of her determination and sacrifice.

At the age of eight, Chuyia (Sarala) is a widow sent to live in a home with other widows, which is only one of three options for her — the other two being throw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre or marry his younger brother. At the melancholy ashram, the young girl’s boundless energy disrupts the structured lives of the widows. She quickly befriends the beautiful 20-something Kalyani (Lisa Ray, BOLLYWOOD/HOLLYWOOD), who was widowed at about the same age as Chuyia. The rotund Madhumati (Manorama, DEVI) rules over the women, taking the best food and pimping Kalyani out to men of a higher caste. Shakuntala (Seema Biswas, BANDIT QUEEN) is a sad, devout Hindu, who runs the day-to-day operations of the ashram. Patiraji aka Auntie (Dr. Vidula Javalgekar) is a kind old woman who longs for sweets she had at her wedding. One day Kalyani meets Narayana (John Abraham), a handsome young lawyer, who wants to change the conditions for widows in his country inspired by the teachings of the ever-growingly popular leader Gandhi.

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