Overall, Mehta's maturing ear for dialogue benefits the cast's talents. In addition, art director Sumant Jayakrishnan sumptuous production design and A.R. Rahman's score deepen reception of the film.

| Jan 7, 2021

Water is stunning because it is so quiet. The devastating unfairness of the lives of women interred in darkness, intertwined with the tragic love story of Narayan and Kalyani is played out without a hint of melodrama.

| Jun 21, 2019

In the end, Water is too much of a compromise. A compromise between, perhaps, shocking the West with the subject matter - a eight-year-old widow! - and going for a popular Indian audience who will demand Bollywood romance.

| Aug 22, 2018

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 9, 2007

Quite possibly the best picture of the year thus far, with no fewer than three of the most luminous female performances I have ever seen onscreen.

Full Review | Jul 19, 2006

Beautiful yet sad, a tale drenched in centuries of stagnant, holy water that cleanses the body but putrefies the soul.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 20, 2006

Ebbs and flows with devastating truths and profound insights into the hypocrisy of extremism in any religion.

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 18, 2006

Mehta's film is courageous and reticent, a shout masquerading as a whisper.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 12, 2006

Reminds us that Mehta is a filmmaker of courage -- she refused to abandon this film even after fundamentalist protestors shut down the production in India -- and singular style, telling stories that have never been told on screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 12, 2006

You'll leave the theater with a lot to think about, especially regarding the plight of women around the globe.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 11, 2006

Packs a punch that is difficult to parry.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 11, 2006

The final chapter in Mehta's feminist trilogy (Fire, Earth), is, alas, the weakest.

| Original Score: C | May 10, 2006

Below its surface, Water isn't about religion, politics or even India. It's about timeless and universal divides between people, when humanity is eclipsed by self-serving subjugation.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 5, 2006

The film is lovely in the way Satyajit Ray's films are lovely. It sees poverty and deprivation as a condition of life, not an exception to it, and finds beauty in the souls of its characters.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 5, 2006

Succeeds in its central goal: to turn a forgotten class of women into real, memorable human beings who deserve a different life.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 5, 2006

It is superb and strange at once, a discreet and self-disciplined attack dog of a movie.

| May 4, 2006

Profound, passionate and overflowing with incomparable beauty.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | May 4, 2006

Water runs deep because Mehta is an able -- if somewhat gloomy -- storyteller.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 4, 2006

Like India's greatest filmmaker, Satyajit Ray, Mehta is a great pure-hearted storyteller and a maker of shining naturalistic images.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 4, 2006

Pretty amazing stuff. Pretty incredible movie.

Full Review | May 1, 2006