If you are familiar with Anurag Basu’s drama of desperate passion you’d know that this sensitive filmmaker knows how to slice through the moral fibre of contemporary relationships to arrive at the core truth of human existence. Everyone lives for him or herself. But if a like-minded soul#mate shows up, you don’t mind losing your isolated individualism to include another entity in your universe of self-absorption.

The two handsome human beings in Kites who love each other start off on an entirely materialistic platform. Early in the film, when Jai (Hrithik Roshan) runs into Linda (Barbara Mori) in entirely unromantic circumstances, you know these two desperate souls will make a run for love even if it means losing their lives.

Basu’s finely written film walks a very delicate line between a romance and a crime-caper. If the first quarter of this handsomely evocative drama echoes Woody Allen’s Matchpoint,...