Highway

Directed by: Imtiaz Ali

Starring: Randeep Hooda, Alia Bhatt

Released: 2014

My rating: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - shitastic - good – great – amazing

I genuinely loved Rockstar, but after Jab We Met, this one is Imtiaz Ali´s best film till date. He doesn´t work according to tried and tested formula. His movie lacks everything most of the mainstream filmmakers throw into the mix just to gain some more attention from the public. Imtiaz Ali is here to make films and that is it. And this one he made with much heart and much feeling, and I cannot stop thinking about it even though I have finished it several hours ago.

A daughter of a rich, prominent man gets kidnapped, by mistake and by chance, but kidnapped still. As the search for her starts, she is stuck with a group of mournful thieves, who are not entirely sure as of what to do with her. The group slowly goes their separate ways, until the girl, Veera, stays in the company of just two (and subsequently one, called Mahabhir) of her kidnappers. The longer she stays with them, the more she realizes how unhappy she was in her home. There is no bull-and-donkey sob story that would ensure her seeing „good hearts“ of her kidnappers – in fact she never learns the truth about them, and they do not need to save her from being raped just so she can promptly fall in love with one of them.

Highway is not a film about finding oneself. Veera is not in search of her identity, neither she is a shy girl who discovers confidence. And I do not even think the film is essentially about finding freedom – rather cleansing of the soul, in both Veera and Mahabhir´s cases. The movie has a distinct, interesting atmosphere and stirs emotions, some of the scenes are extremely powerful. At other times Highway becomes an enchanting composition of visuals and music, both as pure as one can imagine. Many a time I caught myself thinking Highway is, among other things, Imtiaz Ali´s ode to nature. Veera caresses grass and cries over beauty of swift river breaking against a rock, she is gulping the wind as if she could taste it, she stares into the heaven and feels completely content, happy to hear the whistles and songs of sheperds passing through the mountains. Highway is, for most part, a poem without words.

And yet, I did find a few flaws that took away a little bit from the overall experience. The movie has really two emotional peaks. Apart from the obvious Veera´s confrontation with her family at the end, the first one comes about an hour into the film, when she confides her story to Mahabir. An extremely powerful scene, but followed by suddenly very languid series of scenes that already disappeared from the mind. It takes a while before the build-up leading towards the climax again fully engages attention. Secondly, while Randeep Hooda gives a very good performance, there were several moments in which he did not resonate with my sentiments and one or two of his emotional outbursts felt somehow artificial. The character development may have been more elaborate, then again it may also have slowed down the already not action-packed narrative.

Highway marks the actual debut of Alia Bhatt the actress. After being an inconsequential showpiece in Karan Johar´s glossy awfulness of a movie, she can finally bring forth her talent. The girl is more than just Mahesh Bhatt´s daughter. Even if Veera was a character Alia could related to, it was still a challenging role, mostly unglamorous and one the whole film rested upon. She still feels like a diamond in a rough, in need of some polishing, and I have my reservations towards her baby-faced self taking on „sexy“ roles, which are inevitably coming her way (because EVERY girl HAS TO be sexy, otherwise she should not bother breathing), but hopefully there will be more „Highways“ in her filmography in upcoming years. Be it because of Imtiaz´s direction or her own intuition, Alia Bhatt impresses.

Highway leads you on a way that has no demands of anyone. It makes you remember the dark secrets you´d prefer to forget, but it also shows you there is always somewhere better to go. Start again. And feel pure again.

Student of the Year

Directed by: Karan Johar

Starring: Varun Dhawan, Siddhart Malhotra, Alia Bhatt, Rishi Kapoor, Sana Saeed

Released: 2012

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

It is unashamedly obvious that in his latest venture Karan Johar tried to woo the younger generations of viewers more than anyone. Those who were just babies or maybe not even born at that point of time when his Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was creating waves, and thus escaped his „clutches“. Student of the Year pretty much abandons more mature audience and tries to capture the sympathies of the teens much like KKHH did about 15 years ago. However unlike his original audience Karan Johar did not mature as a filmmaker, and delivered yet another deeply average watch.

Interestingly enough told the same way as Barfi, SOTY mostly happens as a one huge flashback of several people coming together after years. And so from a hospital where an old dean is lying in a critical condition, we are thrown into a bursting-with-awesomeness colourful memory of school years spent studying at a super-elite and super-modern college where the most popular boy is the son of a local MP (Varun) and most popular girl (Alia) only wears Prada and Gucci etc. They are boyfriend/girlfriend of course, but she is rather upset with him because he seems not to be able to keep his hands off other scantily clad girls, calling it „being with friends“. The extremely boring plot then follows with „original“ twist – Shanaya (Alia) starts flirting with a new friend (and new most popular guy at school), the even cooler and more awesome and more perfect and accomplished Abhi (Siddhart), to make her boyfriend feel jealous. It works, but oh my, Abhi falls in love with her in the process as well. And if that is not enough for two friends to have problems, they find themselves thrown into a competition for the title of „Student of the Year“...

The story is such that it could have worked - if the three leads had a connection on screen, chemistry if you will, and sadly the three perfectly perfect best friends do not have that. I did not feel any connection in between them, which made it all rather pointless. Not only I did not buy the boys being in love with the girl, but at no point was I ever convinced about their friendship either. That no development of these essential relationships is shown does´t help. To give the movie some credit, it eventually does get some grip in the last hour – it´s just a pity that things that lead to it are so chaotic and yawn-worthy. The ending is not really predictable, and the outburst of one of the students near the end was a good one – it addressed some things even I myself questioned about the Student of the Year competition as a whole.

The debutants do reasonably well, although only Varun Dhawan really impresses in a several scenes (especially his confrontation with father is brilliant). All three somehow lack an on-screen presence, which becomes all too apparent the moment Kajol appears for a few seconds, making her already traditional blink and miss cameo for her Johar friend. Alia (looking 14, and that even in the „10 years later“ segment) is somehow lost in between her lovers and often has nothing to do but to look pretty in designer clothes and showing off more of her legs than may be necessary (though curiously there are more of half-nude males than females in this). The characters of Shanaya and Abhi seem shallow because their background is not well explored. We are given few hints, and that´s it. Unfair towards them and us. 

Rishi Kapoor charms and entertains – as long as you´re willing to accept yet another highly stereotypical presentation of gay men. Stereotypical are also many other characters: that pretty girl who thinks too much about herself and has nothing in her head really, the main heroine´s best friend who is not allowed to be girly and pretty but needs to be treated like a tomboy, Rohan´s „chamcha“, who does everything he wants but then turns against him the moment he has a chance, even a fat nerd boy makes an appearance. There is hardly any thought put into the side characters, and considering how many are there, it´s rather sad, as opportunities not taken always are.

There were some things that made me go slightly (and more) WTF, the biggest one being Rohan´s father taking his younger son´s classmates and God knows who else to Thailand to attend a wedding of his other son. Not at all smooth an excuse for shooting at foreign location. Few more of many problems I had: I have to admit I kept confusing Varun and Siddhart in other than close up shots. Still do, but yeah, this is not anyone´s fault. However, considering none of the students had any relationship with the dean whatsoever.... why did they even care about him that much to leave everything and come to his deathbed – especially some of them? Also – why does Shanaya end up with Abhi? Last thing we are shown is that she „is done“ with both the guys. Ten years later she is Abhi´s wife. Well... how about showing how that happened, since she was the main female lead? I must give Karan a credit for shaking off at least one of the prejudices of mine by not leaning on a big bankable star and taking the newcomers instead. SOTY though is a silly walla film that probably wouldn´t get half as noticed had it been made by a less prolific director.