Songs of Forgotten Trees (2025) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: whenever a man is rude or threatening
Take a Drink: for phone or computer conversations
Take a Drink: for discussions of childhood
Do a Shot: whenever hollong trees come up
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
Last year a sensitive Indian drama about two young woman thrust together as roommates and finding a sisterhood under the harsh city lights of Mumbai debuted to great acclaim. Songs of Forgotten Trees may face inevitable comparisons to All We Imagine As Light as that tagline ably encompasses both films, but it stands proudly on its own two feet.
A Toast
This is an assured feature directorial debut from Anuparna Roy with sensitive, life-like performances from Sumi Baghel and Naaz Shaikh. They play Thooya, who dreams of becoming an actress but makes ends meet through sex work, and Swetha, a call center employee who Thooya sublets the apartment her married lover rents for her to.
Roy slowly immerses us in these two women’s urban lives- the compromises they make to survive, but also the small joys they find together and in their surroundings. They also bond over memories of the villages they came from, but this is a slow process, full of longing, tentative reach-outs, and gradual sympathy and understanding. When they are finally able to return to the countryside and walk among the hollong trees they often reference, it’s like the breath of fresh air they’d been gasping to take in.
Roy is also refreshingly frank about the sex work and the way it is a point of contention between these friends, especially with the implication that feelings may run deeper even than this lode-bearing friendship may indicate. Much is said between the lines- things that may never be uttered aloud.
Beer Two
This film starts slowly. At first you may wonder if a plot with much if any tension will arise at all, but stick with it- it builds in power as it goes.
Verdict
Songs of Forgotten Trees examines two women’s lives among the millions who inhabit Mumbai, stories seldom told but no less deserving of the telling.
