Songs of Forgotten Trees review – sensitive, ambiguous drama of female intimacy in Mumbai

A sex worker and a call centre employee forge an ambiguous relationship in a film of strong feelings

In a tiny crumbling Mumbai apartment two women move around each other, squeezing into the kitchen to cook, or past one another in the hallway. The cramped space hems them in – just as society limits their choices. That is surely the point first-time director Anuparna Roy is making in a gentle drama set mostly in the apartment about the closeness that develops between the two women.

One of the roommates is Thooya (Naaz Shaikh), an actor and part-time sex worker. The apartment belongs to a client, Nitin (Bushan Shimpi), an arrangement that outrages the neighbours. Thooya doesn’t care what they think, and has rented the second bedroom to a stranger, Shweta (Sumi Baghel), who works from home for an IT call centre. There is an awkwardness between them at first that develops into … what exactly? Romance? It looks that way, although the film’s final scene is ambiguous.

Plotwise, Songs of Forgotten Trees is a slip of a thing. Thooya is haunted by the memory of a school friend, married off at age 13, never to be seen again. Shweta is looking for a husband through a matchmaking site. She disapproves of sex work, but as the two women drive home in a taxi one night, Thooya says cynically that if Shweta marries she too will have to be sexually available to her husband whether she likes it or not. Thooya, though, is exhausted by her clients, and their needs. Male entitlement is a theme in the film; Shweta’s IT customers can be petulant and demanding, one man demanding that she speak to him every day.

This is a film of feelings and moments snatched out of context that drift past not without interest, but without leaving a lasting impression.

• Songs of Forgotten Trees is in UK cinemas from 14 August.