There is something especially insulting about a very adult movie told in very childish terms. Before the Rains is a sumptuous tale of class divisions, adultery and tragic love set in 1937 India, yet it proceeds with the narrative obviousness of a child’s picture book. It’s as if director Santosh Sivan feels the need to speak … very … slowly so that we can all understand him. The central character is T.K. (Rahul Bose), an Indian national and the right-hand man to Henry Moores (Linus Roache), a British plantation owner looking to expand his holdings by building a new road. T.K. understands the progress that the road will bring, yet he is conflicted by the budding Indian independence moment and by the illicit romance the married Moores is conducting with his married servant Sajani (Nandita Das). For all its visual beauty, Before the Rains is graceless. It’s the storytelling equivalent of shouting.
