In the midst of wedding preparations, Veera Tripathi feels suffocated and trapped by the predetermined life she is about to enter. She wants to escape, to be free. She prevails upon her fiancé to take her on a midnight ride to get away from the stress when they are caught in the crossfire of a gang committing a robbery. Veera is kidnapped by the leader, Mahabir. But Mahabir has abducted the wrong girl. Veera is the daughter of a rich industrialist who will surely stop at nothing to get his daughter back. Fearing the father’s vengeance, Mahabir’s gang dwindles down to two men.
Mahabir attempts to evade capture by hiding Veera in the back of a truck and traveling through the northern states of India and into Kashmir. He decides that if he can’t get a ransom, he will sell Veera into prostitution. Sullen and brutish, Mahabir treats Veera harshly. When she tries to escape, Veera soon realizes she will not survive on her own. She returns to captivity beaten.
After Mahabir stops one of his men from molesting her, Veera starts to look at her captor in a different way. She seems to see him as her protector and she sets about to charm him into feeling something for her. In the process, she opens up and tells him of her deepest wound – being sexually molested by her uncle since she was young, and her mother’s knowledge of it. Veera’s kindness and acceptance stir memories in Mahabir of his own childhood abuses and betrayals.
Alia Bhatt plays Veera with passion and vulnerability. Veera blossoms before our eyes as she realizes she is freer in captivity than she was in her comfortable home. Her acceptance of Mahabir as another wounded human being brings healing and a return to innocence for both. Randeep Hooda as Mahabir is perfect as the goonda, cynical and hardened by life, who slowly unravels when exposed to affection and trust.
Highway’s music composed by A.R. Rahman, was understated and quite beautiful, taking on the shades of each state passed through. My favorite is song is “Patakha Guddi” which wonderfully expresses Veera’s inner journey. Anil Mehta‘s cinematography makes you feel as though you are bumping along in the back of a truck, feeling the dust of some small village, or looking with wonder at the expanse of majestic snow-capped mountains before you.
Director Imtiaz Ali tells the story of two damaged human beings. He subtly shows us that men also suffer wounds in childhood that have consequences in later life. Highway is not a love story, as much as it is a story about love, made all the more moving and powerful by its’ minimal dialogue and stillness.
