Imtiaz Ali’s highly ambitious Highway, is akin to the cinematic equivalence of staring at a deserted tree lost in the middle of nowhere, who’s very nonchalant existence and serene movements might ring absurd, gorgeous and in-cohesive for you - all at once?
You know the tree is deserted and mysteriously stranded instinctively but somehow or the other you’re seduced to gape at it for as long as it exists.
(Evanscend visual effect!)
Highway is beautiful, mysterious, enigmatic, flawed, underdeveloped and moderately potent character study, all wrapped up in a Stockholm Syndrome candybox, that strikes an uncanny chord somewhat thanks mainly to its two main leads Alia Bhatt and Randeep Hooda along with the sweeping cinematography by Anil Mehta& the pulsating music composed by our very own AR Rahman.
Stockholm Sydrome isn’t all that groundbreaking a concept for me as an audience to begin with, neither its a tired old conventional cliche in B-town.
But I feel there’s something invigorating about the utter insanity of Ali’s characterization in Highway, especially Alia Bhatt’s character "Veera Tripathy", a disturbed 20 something year old, who finds freedom and comfort in an otherwise diabolical abduction scenario, that bow-ties this somewhat underdeveloped material by its rudiments.
Looking at the fluctuatingly Wingletelic mood and behavior of its character’s, its easy to say Highway is fundamentally flawed.
My dear friend in ms @Jmathur opined in his review that it all played like a picnic rather than abduction. Fair enough!
But as creative cinema goes. Your believability or alienation in a twisted tale like Highway, vests solely on how well the story and material is executed by the director and the actors.
In this context, I feel Highway suffers mainly from what Amir Khan’s hypnotic thriller "Talaash" suffered from - hurried and clumsied execution.
Its not the gonzo dogma’s that put me off in Highway but its the middling and hurried execution by our self indulgent, self referential, road-movie fanboy director Imtiaz Ali.
In writing the script of Highway, Ali made a terrible tactical error.
(Your guess is as good as mine!)
The main problem with this film is not the fact that it defies the very nature of human behavior but that the male character lacks depth here vis-a-vis the feminine.
To really feel empathy for the the terribly disturbed and disillusioned childhood of Bhatt and Hooda in Highway, and to root for their rather unconventional love story plot thread stemming via Stockholm Syndrome, you gotta have some investment vested to both the characters and attitude and their back story which catapults their overall personalities.
Pretty much everything in this crammed script is conveyed through mere dialogue as opposed to flashbacks, jump cuts and subtle character set-ups.
But even then, the Randeep Hooda character is a mere caricature. We don’t know nothing about his past except the fact that its disturbed.
Ali strives desperately to marry style and substance in equal proportions here but you can’t help but be skewed towards the style part rather than the substance part when the movie is over.
The visual imagery is simply outstanding in Highway with some of the images echoing Ali’s own romantic road-movie i.e, 2007’s Jab We Met.
We get a sweeping album orchestra design in Highway with the cinematographer capturing the pristine beauty of the countrysides right from Manali to Delhi to Himachal all on the move!
The roads and locals are picturesque and wonderful to gape at and the music composed by Rahman and the unmistakable romantic charm of Bhatt& Randeep Hooda deserves to be mentioned.
Pataka Guddi Oye, Tu Kuja and Mahi Ve sung by Rahman himself are excellent solo tracks but my favorite is Heera to Is Rahiye which comes in the penultimate moments of the film.
My favorite moment in Highway is that superbly rendered scene where the victim aimlessly runs through a laborious Sambhar salt pan lake situated in Rajasthan whilst heading for home and then she subsequently loses steam and energy before tripling down onto the ground.
When she opens her eyes she’s welcomed by the twinkling stars up there on heaven that aids as a symbolic evocation for all the idyllic beauty and the inherent wonders of this universe which she has been deprived in her life.
The third act is hurried but Highway is worth the watch for such inspired bits.
The sum of its parts in this movie is twice the better than the final product.
It ain’t the Bohemian Rhapsody in a lost Highway as we expected pre-release but a highly engaging watch with enough plus points to root for? YES.
Ali deserves kudos for trying something new and steering away from the cliched friends-turned-lovers formula.
See it if you possess a craving for engaging experimental cinema with moderate expectations. You might just about scrap your way out just like I did.
My rating? A generous 3 out of 5.