What a contradiction: there is both so much and so little here. Scorsese loves it. It’s co-written (adapted from Rumer Godden’s book) and directed by Jean Renoir – whose Grand Illusion and Boudu I own and absolutely love. And it was his first film in Technicolor, shot entirely on location in India, with all its bright, bursting, colorful possibilities. I expected to love it.

But the story and the acting here are both awful. There’s unfortunately really no other word for it. Most synopses seem to suggest that it’s a story about a young woman’s crush on a much older, American World War II veteran – both her awakening to the idea of love, and her early adolescent frustrations and disappointments with it. More accurately, it’s about that young woman’s coming of age, as she attempts to jump headfirst into love, life, and artistic immortality (and their opposites – heartbreak, death and the impassive, destructive transience of existence, symbolized by the ever-flowing Ganges).