In one of the key exchanges in Shape of Momo, a rural matriarch tells her daughter how being a woman means to endure, to find “balance [in] a world that is not balancing for you”. But director Tribeny Rai does much more than show women as mere victims of circumstances. Portraying her protagonist as at once a self-avowed modern woman and a privileged brat with little empathy for the poor, the Sikkim-born, Kolkata-educated Rai has delivered a nuanced critique of how a woman’s worldview can be bent along the fault lines of class and gender.

Bolstered by a sturdy screenplay and a fiery performance from the optometrist-turned-actor Gaumaya Gurung in the leading role, Shape of Momo steers clear of simplistic cultural exotica. It shows the viewer a community at once fascinated by the fruits of modernity (ranging from well-stocked supermarkets to iPad-obsessed grandmothers) but also steeped in certain social mores coming from the distant past. These include the unspoken expectations about how women live or should live, and the proud land-owners’ prejudiced views about their struggling tenants.

Reaching well beyond its distinct local sensibilities with universal themes, Shape of Momo – which won multiple awards in project markets across Asia before securing financial backing from Korea – should secure healthy returns on the festival circuit after its premiere in the New Directors’ competitions in Busan and then San Sebastian.

The title refers to a scene early in the film, with its protagonists seated around the table making Nepalese dumplings, momo. Having just returned to her village in Sikkim after spending years away studying and working in Delhi, Bishnu (Gurung) dismisses the art of making perfectly filled and formed momo as a waste of time: it’s fine as long as it’s edible, she says.

While this remark evidences her disdain towards traditional expectations for women, her brutal disregard of etiquette also shows how brusque she can be towards those around her. She chides her soft-spoken mother (Pashupati Rai) for her provincial ways, and is insensitive to the immense pressure felt by her pregnant sister (Shyama Shree Sherpa). She’s even more blunt with the lower caste people who cross her, as she shouts at her family’s servants and tenant farmers.

Bishnu’s rough edges are slightly softened by her meeting with Gyan (Rahul Mukhia), a sweet, gentle architect (and local political scion) helping her build a homestay in the village. Her conscience is finally awakened by a peasant family tilling her family’s land, as she witnesses the ostracism and violent removal of Nepalese migrant workers. Subtly but sure-handedly, Rai alludes to the schisms tearing at the paradise-like veneer of her Himalayan setting. Sikkim may boast the highest GDP per capita of all the Indian states, but there’s also a yawning gap between the standards of living of affluent land-owners and their impoverished labourers.

Cinematographer Archana Ghangrekar manages to strike a delicate balance, showing Bishnu’s (and Rai’s) hometown as other-worldly at certain times and ominous at others, while production designer Uttam Mondal merits attention for conjuring the diverse, high-altitude houses and rural terrain with a mix of rugged realism and colourful artifice. But Shape of Momo is ultimately defined by the screenplay Rai co-wrote with her producer Kislay, as the pair tease out the complexity of the characters themselves and the social norms they abide by, however reluctantly and unconsciously.

Director: Tribeny Rai
Screenwriters: Tribeny Rai, Kislay
Producer: Geeta Rai, Kislay
Executive producers: Mike Goodridge, Xu Jianshang
Cast: Gaumaya Gurung, Pashupati Rai, Shyama Shree Sherpa, Rahul Mukhia, Janaki Kadayat
Cinematography: Archana Ghangrekar
Editing: Anil Kumar, Kislay Kislay
Music: Mikhail Marak
Production design: Uttam Mondal
Costume design: Janaki Kadayat
Sound design: Ankita Purkayastha
Production companies: Dalley Khorsani Productions, Kathklaka Films, Aizoa Pictures
Venue: Busan International Film Festival (Vision Asia)
In Nepali, Hindi and English
114 minutes