The World Unseen (1A)

Miriam (Lisa Ray) is a dutiful housewife and mother who comes to see a life beyond the narrow horizons of her husband's prejudice when restaurant owner Amina (Sheetal Sheth) offers to give her driving lessons. Soon the front seat is thrumming with the electric possibility of Sapphic love. Ray, who looks like a young Jean Simmons, has a great movie face, and perhaps in time will have a screen presence to match. Sheth, as the trouser-wearing maverick, also makes a striking impression. The writer-director Shamim Sarif, at times, seems to be pastiching a 1950s melodrama, and while you may groan at the corny two-shots and the overripe score you have to acknowledge the aching sincerity of its message-mongering.