What begins as an unsentimental representation of a domestic worker by her privileged feminist employer soon becomes a double portrait of enormous emotional and political consequence. While the film captures the courage and dignity of these women as individuals, it is through their relationship that it offers us a critical yet deeply human depiction of Indian society at large. Beyond that, the film brilliantly explores the symbiotic roles of mistress and maid, filmmaker and subject, speaker and listener, to raise key global issues as diverse as the politics of domesticity, gender and class relations, ethics, and documentary art. Lakshmi and Me challenges a new generation of feminists to ask how those women who have been invited to sit at the table can allow other women to remain seated on the floor.  PL