Haq

Yami Gautam and Emraan Hashmi powerful performances in the immersive courtroom drama on Shazia Bano will keep you glued to the screen. It is engaging, immersive, hugely relevant and what a beautifully restrained way of storytelling.

This Yami Gautam-Emraan Hashmi starrer is a powerful, timely reminder that justice is not just a legal word.

As a saga of courage, human dignity, and the deliberately maintained 'debate' between religion and law, Haq emerges as a thought-provoking drama on how religious texts can be misinterpreted. It provokes questioning on religious and social equality, and for that alone, it needs to be watched.

Made at a time when an insidious agenda can be read into it, Haq is an important film that deals with a contentious subject with maturity. Yami Gautam has played the challenging role with ease, never letting the dignity of Shazia slip, even when she is at the end of her tether. Hopefully, Haq will ignite some discussions as to how social attitudes might be changed.

'Haq' operates with simple-minded solidarity, presenting a well-meaning but blandly linear film that fails to engage with the complexity of its subject matter.

Haq is an elegantly dressed-up dressing down of intransigent leaders who force even religious-minded individuals like Shazia to practically secede from the community. Rather than strafing, Haq opts for scolding – delivered in a normal pitch, based on argument rather than rhetoric.

The film's strength is in its restraint. It doesn't hammer the message that women's rights or Haq isn't granted; it's seized. Varma sees the complex space with an even-handed gaze, refusing to vilify faith itself but probing its interpretation.