Journeys have been integral part of every Imtiaz Ali film and his major characters grow, mature and explore themselves through these journeys. He always use travelling as a tool to carry forward his story and create prominent turning points of his stories. But in Highway he completely focuses on such a single journey of the two main characters to build an entire film and he succeeds in making a visually mesmerizing and soulful movie touching a few social issues at times,but a bit tiring at times due to lack of a formidable content.
First of all, when we think of a road movie we expect high adrenaline chasing sequences, unexpected twists and turns, thrilling action sequences etc and I would advise you to avoid going to the theater if you are in mood of such a movie.Highway , in the real sense is an emotional journey of a girl who has been kidnapped and her kidnapper , one was opened the gateway of freedom and the other , the gateway of love and care.Journeys are always spiritual, self- realizing and liberating experience and this one is too not different and it is this soulful journey that is brought in front of our eyes and into our heart by the director with the stamp of a maverick film maker.He also touches on one of the most relevant social issues that is presently seen in today's high class so called well behaved society where children are encouraged to be inside their shell ,close their eyes on realities, to avoid the people who points out their mistakes and to be with those who tries to please them for their selfish motives or time pass
The director had all the support of a strong technical crew to showcase his vision.The stunning cinematography by Anil Mehta is one of the best you would see in recent times, be it the night scenes, dry terrains of Rajasthan, plain farm lands of Haryana or the icy mountains of the himalayas, every scene looks equally captivating and the Kashmir Valley sequences are completely out of the world and the silent bgm by ARR in these places enhances the spiritual experience of this film.The songs just gels perfectly into the film though it may not be hummable if you hear it separately.The sound recording by Resool pookutty is spot on and adds to the authenticity of the scenes.And the performance by the lead cast is simply terrific particularly Aliya Bhatt who surprises you with her spontaneous acting and in certain long shots she was just brilliant considering this is only her second movie. Randeep Hooda as always is natural as ever and gets into the skin of the character.
The director in Imtiaz Ali wanted to experiment with this theme of Stockholm Syndrome of a person getting attracted towards her kidnapper and you could see the stamp of a top class film maker in many scenes especially the kidnapping scene, the escape effort of the girl, the scene where the girl tells her story, the pre climatic scene etc.But the main drawback of the film was the lack of an engaging screenplay which could keep the audience to their seats. There are some scenes where you may feel impatient or tiring due to absence of anything remarkable happening in the screen especially in the second half where he seems to be unsure about how to take this characters forward towards the climax and he ends up showing them roaming here and there around the mountains.
So we could sum up Highway as a visually enthralling, spiritually moving and socially opening movie but a boring one at times due to a predictable and lagging screenplay.With a little more effort from the writer in Imtiaz Ali this could have been a much better road movie. Still its definitely worth watching for those who love travelling and consider them as self liberating and stress relieving experience.
