Raincoat

Rituparno Ghosh's 2004 film departs from O. Henry's story The Gift of the Magi. Manik travels to Calcutta after many years and visits Neerja, the woman he once expected to marry. Almost the whole film takes place in one room across a rainy afternoon. Each of them hides how badly their life has gone, offering good news, inventing successes, and the effort to protect the lie accumulates under the conversation. Ghosh, who mostly worked in Bengali, made this in Hindi and used the room like a stage. The distance between Aishwarya Rai and Ajay Devgn carries all the tension. The ending shows how plain the things they did not say have been all along. Who it's for: viewers who like single-location, dialogue-driven drama and literary adaptation. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a mobile narrative and Indian cinema with songs.