Dancing in Twilight

This movie deserves more than one comment.

This movie deserves more than one good comment.

The makers succeeded in making a serious movie about a topic that a lot of people deal with in their lives but, that Hollywood, currently, seems to be incapable of telling with any subtlety.

What happens when you have "it all" and then it's gone? What do you do when nothing or no one comes close to giving you what you had? What happens when the only dreams you have just leave you at the end of an empty road?

Don't think that this is a movie of unbroken darkness or gloom. The man has decent people all around him that reach out in friendship and love. His world is not gloomy, just the opposite... and it is not without possible roads to a new life, maybe even happiness, reborn.

This gives it the current of hope----even though he is profoundly alone, in his own mind, there are people all around him reaching out to help. This lifts the tone up and makes it hold one's interest.

I was rooting for the guy. Perhaps you'll agree with me that this is important...

Part of me was hoping for a "Hollywood Ending". This is a more serious movie than that. It poses deeper questions.

It asks us to look at life's illusions and then look beyond them.

If you do this, you get your "happy" ending, no matter how it ends.

Superb acting, writing, and directing, and I'm boggled that it didn't get major theatrical play and multiple award nominations. The material is difficult, handled with grace and maturity. Is that what doomed it to limited release? It very nearly went direct to cable and DVD, and that's a shame.

It's hard to write a review without spoilers, so I'll just say that this is a movie which takes eternal love seriously and unbearable loss realistically.

Aside from that, the cinematography is beautiful, and the eroticism is gently but powerfully portrayed. There's a lot of eye candy in this movie: rich colors, Indian-American culture, dance, landscape... all are treated with the same tender respect and celebration as the central relationship which defines the movie's dramatic arc.

There was no bad acting in this film, but Kal Penn (best known as Kumar as in "Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle") and lead actor Erick Avari were both painfully good. Kal Penn has shown he can do a lot more than comedy; look for him in dramatic leading-man roles, including some where his ethnicity will be a footnote and not an innate part of the narrative.