Recommended Free Tools
Majid Majidi’s Beyond the Clouds has a moving center in the bond between siblings Amir and Tara, and a vivid sense of Mumbai’s social divides. But its push toward hope and redemption is less convincing than its images and performances: as hardship gives way to increasingly melodramatic turns, the film asks for an emotional response its story does not always earn.
What is Beyond the Clouds about?
This Hindi drama follows Amir, a young man involved in drug dealing, and his estranged sister Tara. When Tara intervenes to protect him during a police raid, she is imprisoned, forcing the siblings into a new and difficult relationship. The premise is not simply whether Amir can change; it is whether the film can make the path from damage toward reconciliation feel credible. Zee5’s film listing identifies Majid Majidi as director and Ishaan Khatter and Malavika Mohanan as the leads. It lists the release date as 20 April 2018.
Does Mumbai feel like part of the story?
The setting is among the film’s strongest dramatic resources. Its opening image, with traffic moving above people living beneath a road bridge, compresses two sharply unequal worlds into one frame. The contrast gives the story a visual point of view before the plot has to explain the pressures shaping Amir and Tara’s lives.
That image also establishes a high bar for the rest of the film. A city feels specific when its spaces and social conditions shape what characters can do, not just when it supplies a striking background. Wendy Ide’s Guardian review singles out the opening’s expression of inequality, while describing the drama as energetic but uneven. As the story proceeds, the force of that first visual idea is not always matched by equally persuasive dramatic development.
Can the performances carry the siblings’ changing relationship?
Khatter and Mohanan give the sibling story its emotional anchor. The film’s premise depends on more than affection: Amir and Tara are estranged, and the crisis that brings them back into one another’s lives does not instantly repair that distance. The performances help keep that tension legible even when the plot moves toward heightened emotional beats.
Ramnath’s Scroll.in review also recognizes the strength of the performances, while finding the dialogue stilted and the plot creaky. That split captures the film’s central imbalance: its actors can suggest the complicated history between Amir and Tara, but the writing does not always give their relationship enough credible steps to change.
Why does the hope feel out of reach?
Majidi’s humanist impulse is clear: people shaped by deprivation and bad choices should not be reduced to either. The difficulty is that compassion alone cannot make every turn in a story feel earned. When the drama leans on melodrama, the emotional movement can seem imposed from outside the characters rather than built from what they have said and done.
That is where the film’s social realism and its more heightened storytelling pull against one another. The bridge image invites attention to concrete inequalities; the later emphasis on redemption asks for belief in emotional transformation. Ide argues that melodrama sometimes overwhelms the film’s realism, and Ramnath calls its redemption emphasis naive. The film’s most affecting moments come when it trusts the sibling bond and the performances; its weaker ones press toward uplift faster than the plot can support.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
Rank #3
- Original Eros Entertainment DVD
Is Beyond the Clouds worth watching?
It is worth watching for viewers drawn to visually expressive dramas about family, hardship and the possibility of change. Its Mumbai setting and the work of Khatter and Mohanan give the story texture, even as its contrivances and tonal shifts limit the force of its conclusion. This is a film whose hope is sincere, but whose route to redemption remains less convincing than its desire to reach it.
Beyond the Clouds is listed by Zee5; access can vary by region and over time, so check the listing where you are before planning to watch.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
