India, Jan. 11 -- Payal Kapadia's award-winning film, All We Imagine as Light (AWIAL), is finally more easily accessible, on Disney+ Hotstar.

This is not good news for director Jahnu Barua, who was on the jury that failed to select it as India's Oscar entry, and then attempted to explain that failure by calling it "very poor technically". But it is also not good news for the many critics who have swooned over Kapadia's film.

While Barua's statement is factually incorrect, and the world will now be free to view the proof, the fulsome praise heaped on the film has arguably raised expectations to inconvenient heights. And can any film this layered get everything right? Some mixed emotions are inevitable, I think.

For instance, many have p...