Margarita, With a Straw review – emotionally direct study of disability and sexuality

Here is a well-intentioned Indian film that arrives at the London film festival trailing a number of awards, as well as something of a reputation for having ruffled feathers back home. Margarita, With a Straw is a sturdily conceived, emotionally direct drama about a student grappling with cerebral palsy and bisexuality; the title refers to her first time ordering an alcoholic drink, after she has made her way from Delhi to New York University.

Writer-director Shonali Bose has taken on two big subjects: her film focuses on Laila, who does her damnedest not to let her cerebral palsy get in the way of the student lifestyle – she write lyrics for a rock band, surfs dodgy sites on the internet, and languors after hunky long-haired boys. Inevitably, more than her share of disappointment comes her way and, reeling from one particular embarrassment, she takes up an offer of a place on a creative writing programme at NYU. There, in more liberal climes, she encounters (blind) firebrand activist Khanum (Sayani Gupta), with whom she embarks on a tremulous same-sex affair.

Laila is played by Kalki Koechlin, who is rather obviously working incredibly hard to accurately replicate the conditions of cerebral palsy; Bose does her best to ensure that this rarely becomes maudlin by filming in a (mostly) low-key realist manner. The passages that work best are the scenes of simple intimacy – Laila overcoming her nerves as she grows gradually closer to Khanum, her occasionally prickly relationship with her mother (Revathi); Bose is much less confident handling bigger scenes, such as the riot where Laila and Khanum meet, or the Battle of the Bands gig back in Delhi which ends in humiliation for Laila, which suffer from rudimentary staging.

Be that as it may, Bose and Koechlin never lose sight of the emotional core of the piece and, while subtlety is not this film’s strong point, you can feel its insistent pull on the tear ducts at key points. There’s a basic efficiency at the heart of the drama, which depicts Laila’s dilemmas and difficulties with clarity and strength; we are left in no doubt that Laila is doing her utmost to take control of her life, but that she is prey to the same fallibilities as anyone else.

There’s also a nice sense of the contrast between Delhi and New York, without ever necessarily indicating one is better than the other. (In fact, the opening shots, in which Laila and her family drive around Delhi in a camper van, convey real emotion for the Indian capital.) Bose has to handle a difficult balancing act, to empathise with the difficulties Laila faces but also appreciate the effect they have on those that surround her; she pulls it off with dignity and some style.