Ponderous enough to encourage a snooze but also with its rewarding side-effects. Needless to emphasise, Veera lingers on in the memory. And Alia Bhatt’s performance is nothing short of extraordinary, especially her solo stanzas of dialogue, executed in long takes.

Highway isn’t merely concerned with cataloguing the virginal, versatile landscapes of Northern India. Often it’s the only ray of cheer to offset the grimness concealed within two wounded souls. Comfort not chemistry is what outlines the attraction between Alia and Randeep as they amble along higher altitudes of make believe.

Yes, they could be heroes. But just for one day.

Highway is a must watch as much for what it is as for what it isn’t.
It is not a typical romantic drama, nor an average love story. It is a road movie with a difference.

Highway is not an easy ride. But it offers fresh breezes and new sights.

At times, Highway feels like an unending Bharat darshan, a long look at suffering souls through several deserts and eucalyptus trees. But some meandering is its only flaw. Watch it for its cathartic creativity, for colours akin to Iranian palettes, for sound design where melting qawwalis, chirruping crickets and a screeching train make layers of noise – for that shot where Veera rests her head on a pillow of water.

A daring attempt by Imtiaz, a glorious showcase of India (better than any Incredible India campaign) and a superlative performance by Alia Bhatt makes Highway a must-watch.

Director Imtiaz Ali steps out of his comfort zone to make a film that attempts to stray away from the weekly Bollywood fare. The result is mixed, while you appreciate the attempt, the script doesn’t have enough fire-power to push it in to the big league. Nevertheless, here is a film that either you might love or ‘not like it so much’. There will be a few reservations but chances of detesting it are slim and not many films fall in that bracket these days.

It breaks your heart when you hear the sound of the gun pierce the tranquil and peace of the surrounding. You almost hear a silent tear roll down as we watch with bated breath.

This Imtiaz Ali film deserves not just loud applause but a standing ovation.

The film’s powerful, yet deliciously subtle script (Imtiaz Ali) attempts to break down the mental walls surrounding our perception and preconceived urban notions of safety, happiness and love. Yes, this film is not about pandering to what you think should happen next, or how one should react under certain circumstances. The script takes its own course: sometimes rough, sometimes uncomfortable, but always exciting. And therein lies the beauty of the film. The most beautiful journeys are almost always the unplanned and unanticipated ones.

There is so much to appreciate in Highway and if it can goad other commercial filmmakers to take notice and also dare to try something new, we’ll all be richer for it.

To sum it up, Highway is tantalizingly delicious and a journey you would want to embark on. Must watch.

…a deeply dissatisfying film whose very incompleteness lends a sense of beauty to the narrative. Highway is a sprawling stretch of splendour, created by a director who shoots every frame in a painter’s vein. Layered, luminous and evocative this is a world that M.F Hussain would have created if he were a filmmaker.

Highway is a kind of film which might polarize the views again (hopefully this time to a lesser degree than Rockstar). Some might feel the minimalist treatment and a bit of unbelievability of this film quite uninteresting. But this approach stands on the other side of the cinematic range that a filmmaker like Imtiaz Ali employs in his film. We don’t get to see these kinda of films, usually, in the plethora of blockbuster films that are made of at present (which are fun too in its own way!) The director has taken this story and has stamped his own signature style over it, but with the difference.

It is not new, it is not profound, but it held me glued – that freeing your spirit can show you how you are in charge and yet, to free your spirit, you need to take charge.

Even though not free of shortcomings, Highway is Imtiaz Ali’s most honest, personal film and, hopefully, the beginning of a chapter in his career that will be dictated more by craft and intention and less by commerce and entertainment.

Long silences punctuate conversations, shots of staggeringly beautiful locations linger, the pace remains unhurried, and actors surrender to their characters – these are elements you yearn to experience in a mainstream movie, and the film takes you there.

Highway makes for the kind of cinema we need, perhaps not something we entirely deserve. Even if you aren’t moved by its unhurried simplicity, or do not agree with this review, I challenge you to resist an overwhelming urge to rush out after dark hoping to get kidnapped (or simpler, just take off) to the foothills of the Himalayas. In that itself, is the battle won by a film that strives for little more.