The film marks Deborah Kerr's final feature film appearance. She plays an English woman who spent her young adulthood with her now-dead husband in India where they ran a tea plantation. Back in England, she has always felt out of place. The husband spent his UK years building an exotic garden in homage to his years in India. Kerr slaves to maintain the garden, but it's more than just the garden she's trying to preserve.
She meets an Indian woman (Madhur Jaffrey) who lives in the village and who longs to return to India. The immigrant starts to help Kerr in the garden and the two women form an odd bond because of their Indian "roots," though each woman's India is a very different place and likely does not even exist anymore. Kerr's memories of the waning days of colonial India and Jaffrey's memories of quaint village life are just that: memories of long-lost worlds. In the end, one of the women succumbs to the lure of memory and leaves the garden.
Excellent performance by both actresses.
She meets an Indian woman (Madhur Jaffrey) who lives in the village and who longs to return to India. The immigrant starts to help Kerr in the garden and the two women form an odd bond because of their Indian "roots," though each woman's India is a very different place and likely does not even exist anymore. Kerr's memories of the waning days of colonial India and Jaffrey's memories of quaint village life are just that: memories of long-lost worlds. In the end, one of the women succumbs to the lure of memory and leaves the garden.
Excellent performance by both actresses.