The Adversary

This opens and closes with the same scene: an unemployed ex-student waiting for a job interview with some 50 others in a crowded corridor. In between, Ray takes us on a lightning excursion through the preoccupations of disenchanted urban Indian youth. Taking in concern for the underprivileged, distaste for rich hippies, hangovers of the old puritanical morality, emergent Marxism, the ground he tries to cover is almost too much; and when the hero marches into the interview room in the final scene to attack the complacent officials, it's more a dramatic device than a resolution of his conflicts. Even so, Ray's observation of human behaviour is as acute as ever, with the young man's hang-ups constantly emphasised by the gap between his actions and his dreams. CAub.