I thought this was a bold film which should be applauded for telling it like it is. I had read about the drug epidemic in Punjab in a TIME magazine story a few years ago, but it was somewhat shocking to see it portrayed in so relevant and realistic a way.
Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor go out of their usual stereotypical roles to adapt to this thoughtful story, and Alia Bhatt plays a very convincing young laborer woman from across the country in poverty-stricken Bihar who comes to the Punjab to improve her lot and realizes she is caught up in a bizarre twist of circumstances that threaten to make her amazingly rich and powerful whilst leaving her on the verge of losing her life and everything that gives meaning to life – all at once.
Four parallel stories that revolve around the sad but vicious evil of drugs that have all but destroyed the young and the old, the urban and the rural citizen of this lush and fertile land in the northwest part of the country, is a thoughtful story of how a corrupt state administration and police force in cahoots with Big Pharma has made a lucrative industry of manufacturing and peddling death and destruction in the most systematic way.
I’d say this to be one of the more serious and well-made movies to come out of Bollywood this year.
