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Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Unfolds with the clean, simple lines of a fairy tale, and if the characters initially seem to be too black-or-white to be believable, the moral complexity of the story reveals itself in a gradual, subtle manner. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Mehta's film is courageous and reticent, a shout masquerading as a whisper. Read more
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Like India's greatest filmmaker, Satyajit Ray, Mehta is a great pure-hearted storyteller and a maker of shining naturalistic images. Read more
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: 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. Read more
Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: ... an important movie that captures the beginning of modern India in scenes of Gandhi preaching his message of freedom. Read more
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Pretty amazing stuff. Pretty incredible movie. Read more
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Ebbs and flows with devastating truths and profound insights into the hypocrisy of extremism in any religion. Read more
Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: You'll leave the theater with a lot to think about, especially regarding the plight of women around the globe. Read more
Louise Kennedy, Boston Globe: Succeeds in its central goal: to turn a forgotten class of women into real, memorable human beings who deserve a different life. Read more
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Mehta has inspired her cast to rise from one dramatic challenge to another, and her film is charged throughout with the tension between the wisdom of accepting one's lot in life and the urge to resist it. Read more
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: 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. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The final chapter in Mehta's feminist trilogy (Fire, Earth), is, alas, the weakest. Read more
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: 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. Read more
David Chute, L.A. Weekly: ... hitches some of the most irresistible conventions of Hindi movie melodrama to an earnest agenda of social protest. Read more
Gene Seymour, Newsday: ... Deepa Mehta's controversial new epic is driven by a scorching urgency whose intensity exceeds even the previous two installments of Mehta's Elements trilogy of Indian romances. Read more
Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: Lyrical imagery is matched with subtle performances. Read more
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: ... a gorgeously shot, melancholy drama about a 7-year-old girl sent to live in a 'widows' house' in 1938 India. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Mehta prevailed, and this scandalous, beautiful and very moving tale of repression, hope and a tragedy is her triumph, and Hindu India's shame. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Taken as a whole, Water presents a damning view of this aspect of fundamental Hinduism. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: 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. Read more
Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Packs a punch that is difficult to parry. Read more
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Both the plot and its symbolism are transparently basic, yet Mehta handles them with a quiet, lyrical assurance. Read more
Susan Walker, Toronto Star: Mehta has concocted a potent mix of politics, historical conflict, religion and philosophical questioning. Read more
Eddie Cockrell, Variety: 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. Read more
Bill Gallo, 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. Read more
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: It is superb and strange at once, a discreet and self-disciplined attack dog of a movie. Read more