Review: Love Aaj Kal

Love Be Akal

0 stars

Mini Review:

The owner of a bar cum co-working space guides a young couple who have mixed feelings about love by narrating his own story of lost love. He tries hard to say that young people in love in the 90s had the same trouble of choosing between career or marriage that young people have today. Today? Thousands of people balance both rather well and with much less than the protagonists. The original film made by the same director had some heart. This film is so oxygen deprived the narrative is as tiresome as it is brainless. 

Main Review:

Poor Randeep Hooda is given the role of the bar owner who once chose career over love and hand holds Sara Ali Khan and Kartik Aryan who play two young lovers. The two Zoey and Veer can't seem to keep their hands off one another but stop right before they make love. Why? Not because 'Sanskaar' but because Veer wants 'andar wali Zoey, bahar wali Zoey, career wali Zoey, roti banane wali Zoey...' 

My brain froze there. These kids have not heard of Zomato? Young men still want their wives to make rotis? Young people today are more likely to order in, watch Netflix and never worry about career or love. Young men today are happy to move cities if their girl has a better job and then worry about finding one themselves, esp because Kartik Aryan is supposed to be a software programmer, something that does not need him to stay in a particular city. 

It's just shoddy writing and poorly thought out story. Which generation is the filmmaker talking about? It's worse because the original film had defined their career options better.

The story goes back and forth in the past as Randeep Hooda tells his story. It's a time where QSQT plays in the theater, but Udaipur seems to be in the 30s or 70s or something because it is sepia toned. Why? Style? Seems needless. Then Kartik Aryan keeps spreading his arms like Shah Rukh, but the director forgot that Shah Rukh in the 90s was all about body suits/scuba gear type Polo jerseys. Why is Kartik Aryan made to wear strange coat collar bush shirts, only the designer knows. Even Raj Kapoor was better dressed in the movies of his time. It was certainly not the 90s. (Why they don't refer to the gentleman's guide to 100 years of fashion, no one knows.)

Why Bollywood, Why?

Why do men/women who have lost in love go to the Himalayas?

Why does Kartik Aryan pout so much? Why does he not have a hair person combing his hair? (bed head is fine, but...)

Why does Kartik Aryan work at a dam when he says he's a software programmer hired by a water sustainability project?

Why do people always clutch their glass of tea with both hands in the mountains? 

Why does Kartik Aryan have to take his girl to meet parents when he does not live with them? Why do we never know why? Just like the two live separate lives in one home, couldn't Kartik Aryan live with them? This just doesn't compute...

This Love Doesn't Compute. Actually.

Why make a bad version of a film people have already seen? Lack of new stories? Let's say I have not seen the earlier version. Even then the story goes all over the place and you cringe when you hear: Oho! You can 'feeeel' (good, he means) even when the girl is not there?

Ugh. I just hope Kartik Aryan did not mean what the words said. I hope Imtiaz Ali does not now remake Jab We Met or something. Someone tell him: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.



P.S. A young couple attempting to romance one another (the movie releases on Valentine's Day, after all) sitting next to me at the FDFS fell asleep during the movie, holding hands.