Kalank has unmistakable contemporary resonance because it celebrates the transformative power of love and reconciliation in a time of rampant discord. It is worth a viewing not only for what it says, but also for how it says it.

Despite the preponderance of sets and costumes spectacular enough to make Baz Luhrmann weep with envy, and a handful of thrillingly choreographed production numbers that sporadically quicken the movie’s pulse and boost its eye-candy quotient, the attractive yet underwhelming lead players are too hampered by the lethargic narrative to sufficiently distract viewers from their awareness of time passing and interest diminishing.

An Uninspiring Story With Too Much ‘Mohabbat’, Not Enough ‘Mehnat’…The Varun Dhawan-Alia Bhatt starrer is occasionally moving but mostly underwhelming.

Kalank’s all-out commitment to a consistently feverish emotional pitch makes it an anomaly. No one, save Sanjay Leela Bhansali, does this sort of gale-force melodrama anymore. In a Bollywood that’s trying to look more self-aware, emotion can be a lead weight. I’d be curious to see what audiences make of the film over the next week or two; the one I saw it with seemed to tire by the end of all the eloquence.

Kalank’s visual grandeur burdens its romance and shoves Partition politics to the background. Kalank is a strange film that leaves one’s head in an odd whirl.

With a stellar cast and a magnum production budget, Kalank looked every bit promising on paper. But, it simply fails to translate on the big screen. To put in Begum Bahar’s way, “Weak story and direction ka anjaam aksar tabaahi hi hota hai.”

An attempt to map a love triangle onto the tragedy of the Partition goes awry