Videsh-It's a kitchen-sink drama

Heaven on Earth isn’t exactly the plight of protagonist in this film, rather completely contrary to it. The alternate Hindi title Videsh too misleads into the notion that Indian woman in NRI families are essentially victims of domestic violence, as is the theme of the film. It’s as difficult to relate the title with the treatment of this film.

It's difficult to describe just how good Preity Zinta is in her role as a battered young bride in director Deepa Mehta's Videsh. Preity Zinta playing Chand, a Punjabi girl who travels from her home in India to Canada for an arranged marriage. She marries Rocky (played by Vansh Bhardwaj) has little affection or sympathy for his new bride.

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.

Deepa Mehta scores in establishing credible characters of the Canadian Punjabi family with members that are neither sugar-sweet nor melodramatically bitter. Everyone in the film are open witness to domestic violence and remain absolutely indifferent towards the act.

The film clearly loses its audience when metaphorical mythological concerns overpower the underlying theme of domestic violence. Rather the flick imparts shades of gray to the supposedly black victimizer. Preity Zinta delivered a career-best performance as Chand.

The pacing is lethargic and the story takes too long to kick-start. Cinematographer Giles Nuttgens intermittently applies black-and-white frames to highlight some scenes from others but follows no particular theme, making the exercise futile.

Preity Zinta delivered a career-best performance as Chand. Vansh Bharadwaj suffers from shallow characterization. Balinder Johal as the insecure mother and cold-blooded mother-in-law is efficient.

Heaven on Earth, a kitchen-sink drama turns into a hell of a viewing experience.