Movie Review: Videsh

Videsh - Heaven on Earth: Puts you off to sleep

Rating: 1.5 out of 5*

Starring: Preity Zinta, introducing Vansh Bharadwaj

Director: Deepa Mehta


Spousal abuse as a theme is not new to cinema. The promos of Deepa Mehta's ‘Videsh - Heaven On Earth’ bring back memories of Jag Mundhra's ‘Provoked’, which also spoke of domestic violence.
From a small town in Punjab, Chand (Preity) arrives alone in Ontario, Canada, to get married to Rocky (Vansh). What she brings with her is her mother's tales and homilies, songs and mythology that follow the bride into her chamber of horrors. But her dreams are shattered on her wedding night itself.
Homesick in foreign land and hopeless of affection from people around, Chand begins to fantasize another version of her life inspired from tales of Indian mythology about a King Cobra. As the snake takes human shape in her hallucinations, she fancies blissful moments with the imaginary but loving clone of her violent husband.
Inspired from Girish Karnad’s play ‘Naag Mandala’, the concept is absolutely mind-boggling. It makes ‘Videsh’ more than just a story of battered wives. It takes us into the minds and hearts of these women, who pop in painkillers to suppress the physical pain of repeated battering, but got no balm for their bruised souls. How the repressed feelings of one such woman find an outlet through her imagination is what makes ‘Videsh’ a class apart from other films on domestic violence.
What keeps you from walking out of the film mid-way is Preity Zinta’s outstanding performance. Most often shown make-up less in the film, Preity has delivered her career best performance in Videsh. Sometimes without any dialogues, just through eyes she expresses so much pain that you can’t help but start feeling extreme pity for her character. Debutante Vansh Bharadwaj is extremely natural and appears mean to the core. Most of the rest of the cast are unknown actors and each one of them right from the old actress playing Preity’s mother in law to the small kids in the house have delivered a very good natural performance.
Apart from Preity Zinta’s powerhouse performance, Vansh Bhardwaj is impactful as the frustrated husband, though he falls short as the loving snake-avatar. The rest of the cast is very complementary and credible. The cenematography aptly recreates the ambience of the average Punjabi family.
On the whole, ‘Videsh - Heaven On Earth’ works in parts, but it's not enough. At the box-office, the Indian market may not be too receptive to the film. It will have to look internationally to recoup the investment.