‘Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears)’ Review: A Tender Queer Indian Drama Born of Grief

variety.com:

Siddhant Adlakha “Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears),” the semi-autobiographical feature debut of director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, is a gentle slow-burn that occasionally becomes electric.

A rural gay story that begins in a state of mourning and melancholy, it eventually takes on radiant form, with emotional complexities born out of characters walking around the truth, if only because euphemisms are the only language they have.

The Marathi-language drama is, first and foremost, a film of tradition, and the way even mundane cultural norms can become iron bars: stack enough of them side by side, and what you have is a prison.

We first meet Anand (Bhushaan Manoj), a single Mumbai call-center employee in his early thirties, at the hospital where his ailing father takes a turn for the worse.