At first, Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut film seems to move as slowly as the Mumbai legal case it depicts. It doesn’t take long, however, for the story to tighten around you, like the arcane laws and endless delays around the defendant, a singer and teacher named Narayan Kamble (Vira Sathidar).

Kamble is accused of performing a song that inspired a sewer worker to kill himself. The charge seems only more bogus as Kamble’s young, affluent lawyer (Vivek Gomber, who also produced) tries to get his elderly client out of jail.

The shattering high point occurs when a nonprofessional actress, playing the sewer worker’s widow, describes the hideous squalor of his job. Tamhane’s quiet techniques build to pure, cold fury.