{"id":5630,"date":"2014-06-13T01:08:31","date_gmt":"2014-06-13T05:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/?p=5630"},"modified":"2023-01-27T15:59:03","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T20:59:03","slug":"movie-review-highway-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2014\/06\/movie-review-highway-2014.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review : Highway (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/strong>Rating : Above Average (3.5\/5)
\nGenre : Drama
\nYear : 2013
\nRunning time : 1 hour 35 minutes
\nDirector : Alia Bhatt, Randeep Hooda
\nKidwise : R<\/strong><\/p>\n

Highway is about Veera Tripathi (Bhatt), coddled rich girl, who is almost accidentally kidnapped while out on a joyride with her fianc\u00e9. Unceremoniously bound and gagged, she is transported by masked gangsters to a safe-house. When that is deemed unsafe, they move her onto a truck where she lies bound and tied in the back as the uncouth gang-leader Mahavir Bhatti (Hooda) takes the wheel. Angry and rebellious, Veera tries to escape, but finds herself stranded in the middle of the desert. As the journey progresses, Veera\u2019s perspective changes \u2013 she finds some measure of freedom in her captivity.<\/p>\n

From the trailer<\/a>\u00a0I had surmised that the film is based on Stockholm Syndrome, a condition afflicting kidnapped victims where they begin to view their captors kindly, even falling in love with them. Ali promises us hatke<\/em> love stories<\/a>\u00a0with each film, but I found it hard to imagine how he would squeeze one here given the rather dire circumstances. Well, expectedly, Veera and Mahavir grow closer into what appears to be love. Ali spins it as two kindred souls finding each other \u2013 special emphasis on the \u201ckindred\u201d. Although I felt for both of them \u2013 Ali portrays their stories and circumstances movingly, I couldn\u2019t get behind the whole romance angle.<\/p>\n

Generally with Imtiaz Ali’s films<\/a>, I have never found believability a problem. The romance portrayed in his films might be the kinds that upsets the gharwalas<\/em>\/society\/what have you \u2013 but it is believable. It happens. And you feel for the poor distraught lovers. In Highway\u2019s lovestory, the Stockholm Syndrome in the background muddies the waters. Plus I kind of agreed with Mahavir when he admonishes Veera \u201cWill you carry my children?\u201d<\/em> He was right \u2013 there\u2019s a lot more to love than just make-believe house-keeping in beautiful countrysides. I didn\u2019t see how she, cosseted heiress, and he, uncouth kidnapper, would fit together. I didn\u2019t see how she could transform from mutinous captive to sweetly, laughing-joking abettor to the point where she cannot see her life without him. Yes, Ali does offer us a reason, but it isn\u2019t reason enough.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s message is problematic because it offers up Mahavir\u2019s forced companionship as some sort of viable alternative to Veera\u2019s repressive family \u2013 suddenly the camera is much more forgiving when angled towards the kidnapper as he waxes nostalgically about his mother. However Veera seems fettered in both situations and not in a position to know any better. I would have gotten behind the film had it offered a third path \u2013 of independence \u2013 for Veera, away from both.<\/p>\n

Alia Bhatt\u2019s acting gets better with each film. We recently saw her in 2 States<\/a>, where she played Tamiliam Ananya very believably. Here she is a daughter of influential industrialist N.K.Tripathi and does reasonably well. She did falter in places because I never truly felt in her the raw terror of her situation, although some of it could have been the lack of background music\/buildup in those scenes. Randeep Hooda comes across far more believably as the grouchy kidnapper with a hard life.<\/p>\n

Highway has beautiful cinematography. As expected, there is great attention to detail. Veera\u2019s social situation is beautifully built up with the super-rich environment of casual wealth, graceful drawing rooms with well-clad, coiffed folk speaking in hushed voices. A lot has been made of the music, but I honestly found it just OK.<\/p>\n

This is a decent film, but disappointing given it\u2019s accomplished director. I had expected better. I carry away with me the touching plight of the two protagonists, but not of the romance they apparently shared. As a love story, it doesn’t quite work.<\/p>\n

Kidwise<\/strong> : The film contains some scenes of physical violence and talk of abuse and might frighten young kids. Probably all right for 13+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : Above Average (3.5\/5) Genre : Drama Year : 2013 Running time : 1 hour 35 minutes Director : Alia Bhatt, Randeep Hooda Kidwise : R Highway is about Veera Tripathi (Bhatt), coddled rich girl, who is almost accidentally … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[186,76,8,14,28,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-186","category-bollywood","category-directors","category-drama","category-rating-pg13","category-romance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":2,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : Above Average (3.5\/5) Genre : Drama Year : 2013 Running time : 1 hour 35 minutes Director : Alia Bhatt, Randeep Hooda Kidwise : R Highway is about Veera Tripathi (Bhatt), coddled rich girl, who is almost accidentally … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-1sO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5630"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10453,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5630\/revisions\/10453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}