The last rose of summer.

The plot of Doob: No Bed of Roses (2017) is remarkably straightforward.  Film director Javed Hasan (Irrfan Khan) is apparently happily married to Maya (Rokeya Prachy).  In a moment of weakness he has a brief affair with a much younger actress named Nitu (Parno Mitra.)  Nitu is not just young enough to be Javed's daughter, she is a childhood friend of his actual daughter Saberi (Tisha.)  And that's it.  That's the plot.  One bad decision causes everybody's lives to unravel.

The film jumps back and forth through time, starting with the events surrounding Javed eloping with Maya (who was also too young for him when the relationship started.)  There are scenes of Nitu and Saberi at school, scenes of Javed's happy life with his family, and scenes of Maya, Saberi and little brother Ahir (Rashad Hossain) trying to put their lives back together, while Javed drifts into an uncomfortable marriage with Nitu.  The film is bookended by scenes of Saberi and Nitu at their unbelievably awkward high school reunion.

This is not a movie in which things happen, in other words.  It's a movie in which one thing happened, and people stand around and talk and talk and talk about the ramifications of that one thing.  It's very much an art film, and it is slow and solemn and moves from feeling a bit like a stage play to feeling exactly like a stage play.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, because this movie stars Irrfan Khan, who can make "slow and solemn and stagey" incredibly compelling, especially when he's supported by a strong cast.  It's the kind of movie that relies on moments, and the moments are very good indeed.  There's an especially haunting and nearly silent scene in which Saberi offers her newly estranged father a glass of water; it should be nothing, but instead it's one last moment of connection before everything collapses, and they both know that.  It takes a lot of confidence to devote that much screentime to drinking a glass of water, but it pays off.