‘Shape Of Momo’ review: Stirring, authentic drama sees a woman return to her Indian home village

Dir: Tribeny Rai. India. 2025. 114mins

Returning from a life in the city to her small home village in Sikkim (a tiny state in India’s northeast, bordering Nepal, China, Bhutan and West Bengal), Bishnu (Gaumaya Gurung) sits among a group of friends and relatives, proudly reading a piece of ad copy she wrote at the job she just quit. After some faint praise about it sounding like poetry, the subject quickly turns to which of the few men in the village would be good husband material for her. Bishnu’s crestfallen expression says it all, but debut writer and director Tribeny Rai has plenty more on her mind in Shape Of Momo.

The film’s refusal to soften Bishun’s spiky edges make her that much more relatable 

A beautiful Himalayan canvas masks the frustrating challenges Bishnu and the women around her face in navigating the demands of tradition and the ambitions of modernity. Yet while Rai, a native of the region, questions those demands – as well as how to adapt to them – she never condemns them, or the people who uphold them. It’s a tricky needle to thread, but Rai’s assured debut does so effortlessly and authentically.

Playing at Goa after its premiere at Busan (where it won the Songwon Vision and Taipei Film Commission awards) and slots at Hamburg and San Sebastian, Shape Of Momo is well positioned for a healthy ongoing festival run, particularly among specialty events. Adventurous art house distributors looking for work from the more under-the-radar corners of India’s sprawling film industry may also take notice. Archana Ghangrekar’s widescreen cinematography deserves to be seen on a big stream but niche streamers will also likely be interested, particularly given the intimate subject matter.

The titular momo – essentially a Nepalese dumpling or pierogi – plays a part in Bishnu’s story and provides something of a through-line for the narrative, popping up to be made, shared or devoured as needed; the ultimate symbol of custom and cultural connective tissue. Momos can hint at everything from feminine failure and the suffocating weight of obligation when they’re misshapen, to honest emotional connection that occurs when sisters stand over the kitchen counter stuffing pastry.

Bishnu (relative newcomer Gurung in a breakthrough performance) goes about re-settling into her hometown after giving up on Delhi. She’s surrounded by three generations of women, all of whom live under the thumb of patriarchal traditions that Bishnu believes are no longer necessary. Her elderly grandmother (Bhanu Maya Rai) waits patiently for her son in Dubai to come and get her. Her mother (Pashupati Rai) bears the burden of responsibility for both the family and the community. Her older pregnant sister Junu (Shyama Shree Sherpa) is hiding from her husband and her in-laws in the family home as she works out a personal crisis.

Naturally, the independent Bishnu decides it’s her job to fix these women, to address inequalities and prove they don’t need to do as they’re told the way. Things are complicated by her growing attachment to an architect, Gyan (Rahul Mukhia), that has the village buzzing and Bishnu wondering just how committed to her convictions she really is.

Shape of Momo is unapologetically humanist and feminist (which many would argue are one and the same), and Rai and co-writer Kislay’s nuanced script is a gift that keeps on giving, seamlessly weaving together peripheral issues into Bishnu’s adult coming-of-age. The use of language, the spectre of migrant labour and looming development all inform Bishnu’s actions, which unsurprisingly disrupt her ancestral community. Her business-first bluster makes an antagonist of a tenant who rents land from the family, she quickly alienates male workers with demands she expects them to obey, and her aggressive behaviour makes her mother fear for her own status in town.

Bishnu is hard to like, but the film’s refusal to soften her spiky edges make her that much more relatable as she stands at the tricky three-way intersection of duty, identity and agency. In a final letter to everyone and no one, Bishnu writes, ‘The things that exhaust us make us who we are’; tacit acknowledgment that progress is a process, and that traditions can exist in a love-hate dynamic. By crafting a geographically and culturally specific story of personal growth, and wrapping it in bright, crisp images, Rai has created a universally recognisable story as easy to digest as the titular momo.