I like to give Indian cinema a fair shake but more often than not we’ve been disappointed by them. By and large, their insistence on song and dance numbers, no matter how incongruent, their simplistic storylines and above all their excessive lengths often make them quite a chore to watch, as my wife is wont to complain. It just seems stupidly difficult to identify serious Indian drama to watch. Though Udta Punjab also shares the trait of being somewhat long, it’s mostly an exception as I’m happy to report. It was a recommendation that I read about from The Economist, though as an article about the drug problem in Punjab rather than a film review.

There are three storylines here that occur in parallel. Tommy is a London-born Punjabi rock star who has hit it big singing songs about drug consumption. When the police cracks down on one of his cocaine-fueled parties, he is thrown into jail where he encounters youths who idolize him but whose lives have been ruined by drugs. Sartaj is a local assistant police inspector who, along with his colleagues and superiors, are well aware of the drugs transiting through the state and skim bribes off of the trade. However he changes his mind when his own brother suffers from an overdose and teams up with Preet Sahni, a female doctor who is also an anti-drugs activist, to learn who owns the drug factories. Finally, a young girl nicknamed Bauria is a poor migrant for Bihar who works in the fields. One evening, she accidentally intercepts a drug package which has been thrown over the border and tries to sell it. Predictably she gets captured by the original owners of the package who force her into prostitution by making her an addict.

As befits its subject matter, Udta Punjab has a grimmer, darker tone than any other Indian film I’ve seen. The actors wear minimal make-up, the streets are strewn with rubble and litter, and everyone in a position of power are hopelessly corrupt. We still have song and dance numbers here but this time the music serves the story and it’s a long way from the usual saccharine sweet love songs. Shahid Kapoor’s performance as Tommy is shockingly convincing. Though his lyrics are utterly depraved and he is a complete asshole of a person, you have no trouble believing why thousands of youths would be swayed by his charisma and his energy. This is the first time I’ve even heard any Indian rap and it’s a real eye-opening experience.

For all its darkness, it also shows some surprising moments of strength and dignity. In lesser hands, Bauria’s character arc would amount to a fairly standard sob story meant to wring out every iota of the audience’s sympathy and nothing more than that. Instead, director Abhishek Chaubey chose to give her character plenty of agency. When we watch her picking up the package of drugs, we instantly know she’s bringing a world of trouble onto herself but as she laments in a later scene, why should she be fated to live a life of poverty and never be able to hope for something better? Far from giving up, she is strong enough to actively resist and shrewd enough to pretend to be submissive when necessary. She makes a powerful reminder of why the financial inducements of the drug trade are so irresistible even to those who are disgusted by it.

Udta Punjab does suffer from some common flaws. As expected, its moralizing tone is a bit too hamfisted at times and perhaps motivated by the desire to have an identifiable hero in the film, the character of Sartaj seems implausibly competent. The whole point of the threat of the drug trade is that due to its scale and how it undermines the institutions of society, it is not a problem that can be solved with the barrel of a gun, yet this is what the ending is reduced to. Still this a serious film that deserves attention and judging from the responses of the governing political parties in Punjab, comes close enough to the truth to make them nervous. That’s enough to earn a high recommendation for me.