Ashim Ahluwalia's Miss Lovely has everything that a Bollywood audience does not expect, does not have an appetite for. Yet, it has a storyline that would have made for a perfect Bollywood potboiler. Despite the 'opportunity', the national award winning director (he won the award for his first documentary film John & Jane), Ahluwalia goes for an experimental style instead, which is rare to Indian cinema.Bollywood has delved into the 'dark lanes' of parallel cinema many times before, but it is probably for the first time that these dark lanes actually stink, and it reaches your nostrils. So much so, that the experience of watching a movie is uncomfortable, painful and at some points horrible, instead of enjoyable. All in all, the film is bound to make you uncomfortable, but also brings the contentment of experiencing something new in cinema.

Miss Lovely, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section in 2012, is a quintessential Mumbai film. Ahluwalia with the aid of cinematographer Mohanan (Talaash) recreates a lesser-seen underbelly of Mumbai then Bombay. There are squalid, dingy and dilapidated interiors which compliment the underground, illegal workings of the industry which makes sex-horror films. In one ghastly one, a bride is shown on bed with a beast. Simultaneously, there's the red Fiat, inebriated women dressed in gaudy clothes getting into catfights and men in floral shorts and bright pants breaking them. It's this visual contrast that makes Miss Lovely a delight. But this is not merely a nostalgia trip of retro chic. There's heart in this tale too. But Miss Lovely loses direction in the second half with the sudden turn of events. As the film nears the finish line, Ahluwalia is in a rush to resolve his characters' fates. But this is one of its few flaws. Miss Lovely is the real dirty picture. Ahluwalia in all the squalor finds beauty and weaves an affecting narrative.  

Dark, disturbing and disorienting, Miss Lovely is the sort of film grips viewers by the gullet and drags them into a claustrophobic crevice. In other words, it isn’t an easy film to watch. It demands total attention and a willing surrender to its unusual narrative rhythm. The visual texture, the editing patterns and the sound design of this provocative portrait of Mumbai’s dystopian sex-horror film industry of the 1980s are all aimed at generating discomfiture. Watching Miss Lovely is at times akin to being flung into a sludgy whirlpool. At others it has the effect of a corkscrew being drilled into the head. Miss Lovely is unlike anything that has been produced before in Indian cinema. Hence it is absolutely futile to look for past references in order to either slap a convenient label on the film or make sense of it in a particular generic context. Miss Lovely is like an all-out pincer attack that is controlled and perfectly directed.  This film isn’t for the squeamish, the lazy and the kind whose cinematic tastes are strictly conservative. But for filmgoers who love cinema that pushes and prods them into new directions, no matter how baffling, Miss Lovely is bound to be a memorable treat.  Strongly recommended.

Ashim Ahluwalia's Miss Lovely is unlike anything you have ever seen before. Primarily characterised by feverish camera work and splashes of psychedelic imagery, Miss Lovely follows the life of Sonu Duggal (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who works under his shifty older brother, Vicky (Anil George), a B/C-grade filmmaker. Sonu spends his days moving reels from place to place, scouting for new girls to work in Vicky's films and longing to go legit in the film business. A much-touted film festival favourite, Miss Lovely is a frustrating film. Neither does it go forward, nor does it go back -- it only keeps a steady pace where it is like a creaky old rocking chair. The script is not exactly Miss Lovely's strong point. This is not a film rooted in its characters because the director does not attach a solid past to them. So much is left open to interpretation that it becomes the viewer's job to figure out what really happened in the film. But the film has achingly pleasurable performances from the cast and the brilliant sound design. The one good thing about watching Miss Lovely is that now when I tell people that I've watched it, they might mistake me for an intellectual. Stereotypes, I tell you.

Films that try and capture murk and sleaze are usually hard to watch. Usually, there is a transfer of slime, and you feel like washing off the experience. ‘Miss Lovely’, Ashim Ahluwalia’s debut feature shows us the dark innards of the profitable porn-horror fringe-filmmaking that flourished in Bombay in the 80s, the men who ran it, the women who had to run with it. It is done with an unsparing eye, without a hint of exploitation. It makes no excuses for any of its characters, but it does tell us where they are coming from. It has no distracting schmaltz, but a great deal of empathy. Ahluwalia gives us marvelous atmosphere, terrific detailing, just the right grunge and grain in the characters and an unexpected emotional punch: this is a film I want to embrace.  Nawazuddin’s tragic hero is the soul of this film, in turns mirroring the anguish and the dirt and the pain of ‘Miss Lovely’s unlovely, squalid world. Anil George does an excellent job, as does Niharika Singh. As do the other bit parts that come and go. This is a film that unsettled me, and moved me. This is also a film I will savour for a long time.