Partition

Set in India over the dozen years following the outbreak of WWII, director Vic Sarin’s expansive, Canadian-financed period drama mixes Eastern and Western influences to sadly alienating effect. Neve Campbell sports a passable ‘Raj’ English accent as the sister of a British Army captain; and Jimi Mistry is surprisingly moving as one of a pair of his loyal Sikh soldiers, the enlightened and honourable Gian, who strikes up a relationship across the religious divide with Muslim Naseem (Kristin Kreuk) while his fellow Sikh combatant takes a more militant role in the internecine strife that immediately precedes and follows India’s independence in 1948.

The period reconstructions are impressive but the script and direction are a little pedestrian. However, while all the film’s emotions and supplications are over-emphatically signalled and underlined – witness Gian’s poor, pathetic son crying in the rain when mom’s away in Pakistan – there’s no doubting the sincerity of the film’s morally progressive vision.