Rahul Desai
It’s these adults that shape Three of Us, a film whose simplicity reflects the optical illusions of remembrance. The grown-ups in this moment are like humans walking through a dusty dollhouse, a tone that reveals the disorienting phrases of adulthood.
Every narrative gesture looks ordinary. The dryness is there to fathom. Every scene feels a little less striking than we expect it to be – and every place, a little less dramatic.
But it mainly alludes to the three identities of a protagonist with a perishing perception of herself: Shailaja was someone, she is somewhere, and she soon will be nowhere.
Ahlawat infuses Pradeep with a subtle femininity, too, which doesn’t come across as a trait so much as a brave consequence of boyhood trauma. Swanand Kirkire, as Shailaja's husband, plays the ‘third wheel’ in an unobtrusive manner
Three of Us plays out like a no-frills funeral conducted by a person who is about to die. It isn't a narrative of memory, but the cinema of life itself. It’s a story of reclaiming and letting go at once.