A naive British teenager travels to war-ravaged Kashmir with her mother to meet her grandparents, and to learn the truth about her missing father in this well-meaning but clunky drama. Noor (Zara Webb) strikes up a friendship with 16-year-old Majid (Shivam Raina) and, through a series of unsubtle story devices (coincidences and overheard conversations abound) learns that his father and hers shared the same fate – which links them both to a devout village elder (played by director Ashvin Kumar). Noor persuades Majid to trek up into the military zone in the mountains, where, inevitably, the pair fall foul of the brutal Indian army.
There’s no question that Kashmir, with its troubled history and beautiful landscape, is a land rich with stories ripe for the telling. But this contrived and dithering tale is too unpersuasive to do much justice to the violence and tragedy of the region.
