Village Voice

This work of gorgeous fury, about the virtual imprisonment of millions of Hindu widows in the years before independence, transforms Mehta's feminist rage into an eloquent testament to the hunger for freedom.

Village Voice by Bill Gallo

This work of gorgeous fury, about the virtual imprisonment of millions of Hindu widows in the years before independence, transforms Mehta's feminist rage into an eloquent testament to the hunger for freedom.

Philadelphia Inquirer by Carrie Rickey

Profound, passionate and overflowing with incomparable beauty, Water, like the prior two films in director Deepa Mehta's "Elements" trilogy, celebrates the lives of women who resist marginalization by Indian society.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold

A film with the epic scale and fearless common-sense vision of Water is a revelation.

The New York Times

An exquisite film about the institutionalized oppression of an entire class of women and the way patriarchal imperatives inform religious belief.

Variety by Eddie Cockrell

Deftly balancing epic sociopolitical scope with intimate human emotions, all polished to a high technical gloss, Deepa Mehta's Water is a profoundly moving drama.

The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt

Exquisite storytelling, acting and visuals.

The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis

An exquisite film about the institutionalized oppression of an entire class of women and the way patriarchal imperatives inform religious belief.

Washington Post by Stephen Hunter

Water, set in 1930s India, is something pretty rare in the world of movies: an artistic muckraker. It is superb and strange at once, a discreet and self-disciplined attack dog of a movie.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington

The writer-director doesn't raise her voice, even as she firmly condemns the injustice. Water seduces us with its beauty and sorrow.

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas

As beautiful as it is harrowing.

L.A. Weekly by David Chute

Hitches some of the most irresistible conventions of Hindi movie melodrama to an earnest agenda of social protest.

San Francisco Chronicle by Ruthe Stein

Mehta has created the perfect guide to this strange female world.

ReelViews by James Berardinelli

The stunning Lisa Ray, a Bollywood exile, makes one of the most beautiful widows ever to grace the screen. Vidula Javalgekar gives a memorable turn as the infirm "Auntie." But the real find is Sarala, a Sri Lankan girl who memorized dialogue in a language she does not understand and delivers it with conviction.

New York Post

Gandhi did save India from the British, but he didn't save India from the Indians, and the horrific subjugation of widows continues there even today. It was only 10 years ago that Mehta encountered the Hindu widow who inspired her film.

The A.V. Club by Tasha Robinson

Water is gorgeously composed and beautifully shot, with a dogged emphasis on water imagery and symbolism, and a luscious sense for color. It's often profoundly beautiful. But its distanced, calculated attempts to draw sympathy, from its wide-eyed child protagonist to its sad-eyed, personality-free lovers to its fairy-tale ending, all blunt the meaning behind that beauty.