Deepa Mehta’s ‘Heaven on Earth’ is another masterpiece that beautifully captures the cultural conflict as a Ludhiana lass, Chand (Preity Zinta) moves o Canada and marries a young cabby, Rocky (Vansh Bhardwaj).

The movie opens with a promising note for the young girl who moves to Brampton, Ontario, in search of a brighter future, and the picturization of the wedding and beautiful locales add to it, at least in terms of the creature comforts, if not the emotional ones.

The movie that was released in Canadian circuit on 24th October has received raving reviews from the local media for Preity and Vansh’s performance in the movie, which has been punctuated with light humour and emotional extremes.  

The honeymoon scene at Niagara Falls for the young couple and constant pestering by doting mother of the bridegroom, adds comic relief to the entire episode.

Deepa Mehta has skillfully experimented by introducing black and white segment to mark the transition to the harsh realities of life, when Chand’s mind fleets back and forth amidst the emotional traditional folk lores of back home with different reality of her life in Canada.  Where Chand transforms into a surreal world interspersed with the folk lores of Punjab that not only plays down on the physical abuse that she is facing in her new world, but also adds a tinge of comic as depicted in the ‘cobra pit’ episode where Rocky turns into a cobra – though in her imagination.  This split narrative looks within the mind of Chand – a victim of domestic violence – and how she copes and tries to escape the harsh realities of her life through the images that she conjures up in her mind.

The only disappointment for the viewers is its abrupt ending with no poetic justice or redemption for the victim.  

However, the movie has been commended and very well received by the Canadian audience with The Vancouver Sun describing the performance of Preity Zinta and her Canadian co-star Vansh Bhardwar as “nothing short of genius”, while another film critic Peter Howell writing in The Toronto Star, remarks, “Zinta and Bhardwaj bring depth to characters that could easily have slipped into stereotypes.”