Serafima Serafimova
If A Woman Of No Importance teaches us one thing, it’s that silence can speak volumes. Centered around a character with little voice in her own life, the 17-minute drama, directed by Gauri Adelkar, is crafted with stillness and subtlety in order to reveal a subculture rarely seen on film authentically. Resting on a captivating performance by lead actor Kalieaswari Srinivasan (star of Cannes Palme d’Or winner Dheepan), A Woman Of No Importance cleverly maneuvers its plot to avoid immigrant-story cliches, while delivering taut, yet intimate storytelling that provokes questions, challenges preconceptions, and tests compassion.
The story follows Ismat, an undocumented South Asian single mother, working as a seamstress in a garment shop in Queens, New York. A diligent and hard-working employee, Ismat quietly navigates the mistreatment she experiences at the hands of her overly demanding boss and the ridicule she faces from the other students at her evening computer class. Survival for her and her daughter takes priority, and she is willing to suffer indignities to do so. One day, however, she is witness to something deeply distressing at work, something which will put her at a crossroads between her morality and her self-interest.
“I was interested in the idea of presenting a South Asian female immigrant protagonist who’s complex, human, and flawed”
In communicating with Adelkar about where the inspiration for the film came from and what she set out to achieve through it, her responses were thoughtful: “As an immigrant from India, I feel that South Asian immigrants are often portrayed as one-dimensional characters in American stories” – the director explained. “They are either overly agreeable people with a funny accent and head wobble, or people who force their American-born kids into arranged marriages. I was interested in the idea of presenting a South Asian female immigrant protagonist who’s complex, human, and flawed.”
Adelkar succeeds in this aim via her conception of Ismat, but it is Srinivasan’s utterly convincing performance that elevates the construct into an indelible portrait of a woman. The actor embodies Ismat with delicate precision, artfully expressing the character’s transition from a compliant immigrant, always doing as she’s told without protest, into someone who is suddenly given the opportunity to speak up in the face of injustice. It’s around this remarkable performance that Adelkar builds an intelligent and engaging narrative, with admirable restraint and a light directorial touch.
The performance of actor Kalieaswari Srinivasan is the driving force behind A Woman of No Importance
I recognize that my description to this point does not sound like a film that “cleverly maneuvers” around stereotypes, but a rather standard, sympathetic treatment of a figure on the margins of society. You will likely spend some time throughout your viewing of the film waiting for the first racist remark, as that is the customary story beat that emphasizes the main character’s perceived “otherness”. However, that moment never arrives in A Woman of No Importance. This is a running theme throughout the film—nothing you’ve come to expect from watching films with the same narrative bones actually happens here.
It’s a testament to Adelkar’s emotional intelligence and talent for authentic storytelling that she doesn’t lead the story to a predictable, conveniently packaged conclusion. Instead, her focus remains firmly on Ismat and the trepidations of life as an immigrant and a single mother who is constantly trying to carve out just enough room to survive around the pressures that weigh her down. And, in not giving us what we expect, she has enriched our experience by making us question the validity of these expectations. This really is storytelling at its most riveting.
They say that actions speak louder than words, but in the case of A Woman Of No Importance, it’s silence – the silence that’s vital for objective observation, subtle intimacy, and internal reflection.