These include a violent attack on Mansoor, a forced exodus of the porters and, as if on cue, a cataclysmic flash flood brought on by the Chorabari Lake breaching its banks following torrential rains. These two significant threads of the story - rapid environmental degradation and the fraying social fabric - are sadly lost in a maze of dramatic flashpoints that make up the rest of the film.

Kedarnath Movie Review: A still from the film. As a result, the relationship that takes roots between an amiable Muslim porter and a Hindu priest's free-spirited daughter does not attain the intensity of passion to mirror the devastating force of the twin threats that the duo and the town face - an impending natural calamity and the fast spreading venom of religious bigotry. It moves forward only in fits and starts. The screenplay by Kanika Dhillon, which touches upon pressing issues but does not follow through with them, takes its time in etching out the broad contours of the plot and the characters that populate it.

But the positive features are eventually buried under a deluge of clichés aggravated by a contrived climax. On other parameters, too, the film strings together elements that seem promising at first flush. The snow-capped peaks, the gushing waters of the Mandakini, the panoramic views of the settlement in the valley and the sweeping vistas around it that cinematographer Tushar Kanti Ray captures are stunning no doubt. What we have in Kedarnath is an irresistible visual treat. The natural calamity turns it into a CGI-driven mess that washes away any prospect of this ambitious effort assuming the proportions of an epic drama. The disaster that strikes the eponymous Himalayan town and an interfaith couple in Abhishek Kapoor's Kedarnath does not spare the film either.

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