The film – a brave experiment on Ali’s part, who uses long stretches of silence, improv dialogues, and characters over plot to drive the narrative – doesn’t necessarily work. It’s meandering and indulgent in many parts, tiring you out well before it’s over.
A beautiful mess, but a mess nonetheless.

I wanted more because it comes from a director who knows, or at least has known how to transfuse exuberance in love, and joy in sheer movement. ‘Highway’ is pretty but stagey.

Imtiaz skillfully creates moments that are at once, tender, funny and fragile. But my problem was that I simply didn’t buy into the story.

It is rare that a Hindi language film delivers so much promise in the first half. And so it is extremely disappointing when the director and his script lead us on a journey that eventually fizzles out, collapses and dies in front of our eyes

Alia Bhatt fits perfectly in this role but doesn’t have much scope to perform. Even Randeep Hooda is not bad either but has little to do. Casting director Mukesh Chhabra is bang on, it’s unusual and works very well here! Rahman’s music does set the mood of the film and cinematographer Anil Mehta captures beautiful locations but even all this can’t save this film!

Avoid this Highway, it will lead you nowhere!

Highway whips up all the ingredients required for an intriguing film but goes wrong as a whole. It is bold subject handled flimsily and doesn’t come close to believable. There is excessive heavy handedness in the screenplay and somehow the effortless ease that signifies the beauty of Imtiaz’s films is absolutely missing from it. There is far too much of incoherence in the screenplay to bear and though it tried its hand at adding varied hues to multiple layers of the story, one cannot disagree to the fact that it is only Rahman’s divine music and the pristine cinematography that works here. It left me baffled and numb especially because I expect better from Ali. It is heartbreakingly mediocre and I am settling for ratings which translate the same.

Watch Highway for Alia and Randeep if you must. For a two-film-old, Alia’s screen presence is incredible. She gets every nuance, every energetic burst and trauma about Veera just perfect. If there is an element of the fragile about her beauty, Ali has tapped it well.

Highway doesn’t have a story that can engage you till the end. Post-interval, the film meanders aimlessly, not knowing how to resolve the conflict it has got into and at one point the director decides, okay it’s time to end the chase.

If armchair tourism is what you are looking for then Highway may be worth your while otherwise it makes sense to wait for this one till it airs on TV. Beyond scenic locations captured superbly by cinematographer Anil Mehta, there is little it offers.

HIGHWAY is a triumph for Alia Bhatt, who delivers a marvelous performance. Also, what you carry home, besides Alia’s winning performance, are the stunning visuals, especially towards the second hour. But the treatment of the written material restricts its appeal largely. The connoisseurs of cinema and a tiny segment of the movie-going audience may go ga-ga over the film, but there’s precious little for the large base of mass audience that’s looking at the entertainment quotient from the maker of hugely admired entertainers like JAB WE MET and LOVE AAJ KAL.