plot?
Could somebody please post the plot of the movie with spoilers? I missed a few important parts of the movie while watching it and it would be really helpful! Thanks.
shareA fair number of audience members at my screening seemed to be confused about some of the events, but this is my take on it:
Kamla hasn't heard from her husband in five months. He's been working on a construction site in Delhi, which was arranged by a man in Shimla. The elders of the village tell her that her husband is probably fine, even though several men in that situation have either been killed on site or started new lives in the 'big city'.
She decides (rather ill-advisedly in my opinion) to track him down, taking her young daughter and a pet goat along the way.
Nawaz is a former border patrolmen who has deserted his post and is skilled in the art of sleight-of-hand and conning people. He sees Kamla and her daughter and feels protective of them, probably because in his former life he had a wife and daughter. Perhaps he deserted them as well, maybe they were killed. Who knows? But he journeys with them, partly because Kamla begs him to help her find her husband and partly because he seems to enjoy the role of protector.
When they get to Shimla, the man who Kamla was looking for is not available, so she decides to go on to Delhi, where she has a return address from letters written her.
Nawaz warns her repeatedly that Delhi is a very dangerous place for a single woman (and her small child) but she persists in finding out what happened to her husband. While she and her daughter stay in a seedy 'guest hotel', Nawaz goes out in search of the construction site.
At several times during the movie, we see Nawaz perform what is obviously a scam: rolling sets of dice under cups and having people bet on the numbers that come up. Even though he is never caught, the fact that the name of the movie is "Liar's Dice" tells us that he is cheating people. But he also uses the money to buy shelter and food for Kamla and her daughter, so he's not altogether bad.
Another recurring scene is Kamla using her cell phone to call her husband, who never picks up. One night, when Nawaz is off roaming the streets, she calls her husband's phone and she hears a ring coming from inside Nawaz's bag. She opens it up and finds a brown envelope full of her husband's things: his phone, watch, wallet. She realizes he is dead and Nawaz didn't tell her that he had found the site and gotten the information and she has a complete breakdown.
Nawaz comes back to find Kamla and her daughter gone. He searches for them, but they have disappeared. He goes to the construction site and takes up work there, perhaps to fill Kamla's husband's place, or perhaps because he had nowhere else to go.
The film ends with a shot of the small border town and Kamla's daughter calling for her, just as it began. For them, it seems, life simply returns back to the way it was.
Falling feels like flying... until you hit the ground.-Tom McRae