General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Such a Long Journey

Such a Long Journey is a 1998 English-language drama film directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, with a screenplay by Sooni Taraporevala adapted from Rohinton Mistry's 1991 novel of the same name. Set in Bombay in 1971, the year India went to war with Pakistan over what would become Bangladesh, it follows Gustad Noble, a Parsi bank clerk and devoted family man whose modest life unravels after he agrees to help an old friend now working for the government in what proves to be a dangerous scheme¹^•².

Key fact	Detail
Release year	1998; 35mm color, English language, 113 minutes¹
Source	Rohinton Mistry's 1991 debut novel, short-listed for the Booker Prize³^•⁴
Director and writer	Sturla Gunnarsson; screenplay by Sooni Taraporevala¹
Lead cast	Roshan Seth (Gustad Noble), Soni Razdan (Dilnavaz), Om Puri (Ghulam), Naseeruddin Shah (Major Jimmy Bilimoria)⁵
Setting	Bombay, 1971, during the India-Pakistan war over Bangladesh¹
Awards	Genie Award 1999 for Roshan Seth (Best Actor); nominated for Best Motion Picture, Direction, and Screenplay; Most Popular Canadian Film at Vancouver 1998⁶
Critical reception	Metascore 74 (15 positive, 3 mixed, 0 negative); Rotten Tomatoes 93% (13 fresh, 1 rotten)⁷^•⁸

Spoilers

Plot

Gustad Noble (Roshan Seth) is an industrious bank clerk living with his wife Dilnavaz (Soni Razdan) and their three children in a rented apartment in Byculla, Bombay, commuting daily to the Central Bank of India¹^•⁹. His domestic existence begins to unravel on several fronts at once: his young daughter Roshan falls ill despite her parents' care, his eldest son Sohrab refuses to attend the Indian Institute of Technology despite gaining admission, defying his father's aspirations for him, and the municipal authorities plan to raze the wall outside the family's apartment building to widen the road¹^•¹⁰.

The letter. Gustad's world is further disrupted by a letter from his old friend Jimmy Bilimoria (Naseeruddin Shah), a retired army major who has joined Indira Gandhi's secret service, and Jimmy's associate Ghulam (Om Puri). They seek Gustad's help in what appears to be a daring mission, and Gustad, naively and with considerable doubt, agrees, depositing sums of money under a false name at his bank with the help of his friend and co-worker Dinshawji (Sam Dastor). It is his first step into a world of deceit, danger, and shady dealings with the secret service¹^•¹⁰. Jimmy tells him the funds are for a secret government project financing a resistance group in Bangladesh¹⁰.

Around the central plot moves a roster of supporting characters: Miss Kutpitia (Pearl Padamsee), the medicine lady who urges elaborate medical spells; the innocent, brain-damaged Tehmul (Kurush Deboo); and Dinshawji, Gustad's bombastic co-worker and friend¹^•².

The novel and its historical basis

Mistry's novel, his first, was published on April 25, 1991, by Knopf, a 384-page story of a family man in 1971 India who experiences a political scandal firsthand⁴. Mistry, Bombay-born, has been a resident of Toronto since 1975¹¹.

The Bilimoria plot has a historical scaffold. One account holds that the plot element in which Gustad is asked to launder money through his bank account comes straight from the 1971 Nagarwala scandal, when a fraudster mimicking the voice of Indira Gandhi tricked the State Bank of India out of sixty lakh rupees that were afterwards connected to financing the Bangladesh Liberation War.¹² Scholarly work has also traced the novel's deep debt to Shakespeare's King Lear, which acts as a meta- and intertext through which Mistry writes his political critique of life in 1970s Bombay¹³.

Production

The film was shot at Film City in Mumbai, with sets by production designer Vikas Desai filled with details from a Parsi household¹⁴. Gunnarsson was the third director attached to the project, which producer Paul Stephens had developed for five years; Deepa Mehta and Waris Hussein had earlier been picked but never made the film¹⁴. Gunnarsson said he agreed to direct after reading the script and then the book, which he found "full of humanity and so closely observed"¹⁴.

The production companies were Film Works and Amy International Artists Ltd. (U.K.), with Paul Stephens and Simon MacCorkindale producing, Jan Kiesser as cinematographer, and Jonathan Goldsmith composing the music¹. Taraporevala's screenplay earned her a Genie nomination from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television¹⁵.

Reception

The film premiered on the festival circuit in 1998, screening at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it won Most Popular Canadian Film¹⁶^•⁶. At the 1999 Genie Awards, Roshan Seth won Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, and the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture, Best Achievement in Direction, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (Kurush Deboo)⁶.

Critics responded strongly to Seth's performance and the film's texture. Roger Ebert, rating it among the richest in atmosphere he had seen, wrote that it "makes Western films look pale and underpopulated"¹⁷. The Los Angeles Times called Seth's portrayal of a good man whose capacity for courage grows under duress transcendent, while judging the film itself uneven, with too many questions raised only to be dropped¹⁸. On Metacritic it scored 74, with 15 of 18 critic reviews positive and none negative⁷.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Adaptations of literature, stage, and other media › Films based on novels, novellas, and short fiction › Films based on contemporary literary fiction › Drama and romance adaptations

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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