Starring Miss Pooja, Athar Habib, and Harish Verma. In Punjabi. Rated PG.

Panjaban: Love Rules Hearts marks the acting debut of Punjabi music superstar Miss Pooja, who can best be described as a freak of nature, a rare artist whose every bone oozes talent.

And what a debut it is. She singlehandedly carries the film and leaves most of the cast in the dust as she cries, laughs, sings, and dances while doing double-duty playing twin sisters with markedly different personalities. The female-twins genre used to be a popular Bollywood staple in the 1960s and ’70s with the most famous example being Seeta Aur Geeta featuring former Dream Girl Hema Malini.

Veteran Punjabi filmmaker Gaurav Trehan takes direct inspiration from Seeta. This includes Miss Pooja wearing Malini’s famous wig as Gurpreet, or Preet, the more outgoing of the two wealthy sisters who is diametrically opposite of the bookish Gurjot.

The thin plot has Preet marrying Karan (Harish Verma), whom the family had initially chosen for Gurjot but who finds more in common with the bubbly Preet. This allows Gurjot to remain available for Gurikk, or Ikki (Athar Habib), her law school classmate who is madly in love with her. Karan turns out to be career conman, which leads to the film’s main conflict as well as the central plot twist.

Director Trehan keeps everything simple. This allows Miss Pooja to display her varied talents and flair while filling dead time with comedic bits from secondary players, including leading comedian Sudesh Lehri as an out-of-control family servant.

The diminutive Miss Pooja is the first woman to dominate popular Punjabi music, which has long been the domain of male singers with female singers relegated to playing second fiddle. Here, she gives an assured, breakout performance and makes a seamless transition to the silver screen.