Rahul Desai
“Goldfish” is something Anamika might use to mock her mother’s fading memory, but it also refers to a childhood incident featuring Sadhana’s coldness and a dead pet.
The Film opens with a 30-something Anamika (Kalki Koechlin) storming back into her childhood home. “Let’s just get through this, shall we?” she hisses. The recipient of her curt greeting is Sadhana Tripathi (Deepti Naval), her mother.
Director Pushan Kripalani’s drama is a moving ode to the layered dynamics of caregiving. So much of the commitment is determined by the heritage of duty. That the roles between parent and child are reversed is a given.
Kripalani’s film-making is economical and dry – no score; no narrative offshoots; cut-to-black transitions that serve as blank canvas for Anamika’s grief – almost as if it’s daring us to notice the casual decomposition of a mindscape.
Most of all, Goldfish finds emotion in the nonchalance of life. It gets that mundanity is often the manifestation of intimacy.