Viveik Kalra makes teenage enthusiasm convincing without making it look sensible. His open-hearted performance in Blinded by the Light is worth seeking out, even when the film gets carried away by its favourite singer.
Fi1m perspective
When Javed discovers Bruce Springsteen in Blinded by the Light (2019), Viveik Kalra lets the excitement show without an apologetic wink. We were moved by those first encounters with the songs because Kalra makes us understand why Javed thinks the lyrics explain his life. The enthusiasm is excessive, as a teenager's devotion to a singer often is, and Kalra does not try to make it more respectable. Gurinder Chadha gives him room to look foolish without inviting us to feel superior. That willingness to be unguarded is the strongest reason to watch him.
Chadha cast him after seeing his screen debut as Danish Shirani in the television miniseries Next of Kin (2018). They also worked together on Beecham House (2019), making her the important early collaborator in a career that has since moved between drama and genre films. Later supporting work includes the science-fiction ensemble Voyagers (2021), the coming-of-age drama Three Months (2022) and the heist film Lift (2024). Those parts have received less individual critical attention than Javed, so our enthusiasm still rests chiefly on Chadha's film.
The family scenes in Blinded by the Light matter as much as the songs. Javed is a British Pakistani teenager in 1980s Luton, dealing with racial hostility and a strained relationship with his father, and Kalra makes his need for somewhere else to turn understandable. He is persuasive when feelings have to be spoken aloud, particularly within the family, without losing the sense of someone still finding the words. Chadha grounds the musical excitement in those pressures before asking us to share it. The performance keeps the boy recognisable when his attachment to Springsteen threatens to exhaust our patience.
There is a limit to how much even that openness can do. The coming-of-age story is familiar, and the repeated insistence on the music's importance becomes tiring; Kalra carries the film, but cannot remove the repetition. We would like another leading part that gives him comparable space for family friction and awkward enthusiasm. Start with Blinded by the Light; a tolerance for repeated declarations of devotion to Springsteen will help.
Biography
Viveik Kalra is an English actor. His breakout role was as Javed Khan in the 2019 film Blinded by the Light, directed by Gurinder Chadha.
Born in 1998 in Windsor and Maidenhead, Berkshire, he attended Hurtwood House boarding school and began studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama before leaving after securing his first professional role. Kalra's screen debut came in the 2018 ITV miniseries Next of Kin. He also appeared in the 2019 ITV series Beecham House.
Subsequent credits include Voyagers (2021) as Peter, Three Months (2022) as Estha, and Lift (2024) as Luke. He received a Best Actor nomination at the 2019 Seattle International Film Festival for Blinded by the Light.
