Tag Archives: Junaid Khan

Movie Review: Loveyapa (2025)

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0.5 Star (out of 4)

Watch Loveyapa on Hulu

Rarely has a romantic comedy been so devoid of romance or comedy. Loveyapa is grim viewing.

The official remake of the 2022 Tamil film Love Today dumps viewers into the relationship of 24-year-olds Baani (Khushi Kapoor, daughter of Sridevi) and Gucci (Junaid Khan, son of Aamir Khan). Kapoor actually is 24, but Khan is 31 and looks it. His older physical appearance makes them a visual mismatch, and it makes the immature antics his character engages in look even more indefensible than they already are.

After 35 minutes of boring stuff — mostly them hiding their relationship from their nosy parents and preparing for the wedding of Gucci’s sister Kiran (Tanvika Parlikar) to shy dentist Anupam (Kiku Sharda) — the movie finally reaches its first plot point. Baani’s strict father Atul (Ashutosh Rana, who must have owed someone a favor) insists that the couple swap phones for 24 hours before he’ll give them permission to continue dating.

Baani doesn’t find anything suspicious in Gucci’s phone because he cleared it of incriminating material before turning it over. However, when Gucci looks at Baani’s phone, he learns that, by virtue of being a pretty woman on social media, Baani is bombarded with pleas for attention from all manner of men (which she politely deflects). However, her messages show that she lied to Gucci in order to meet one of her exes platonically, knowing that Gucci would be mad. He is.

Instead of talking about this with Baani or just breaking up with her, Gucci slut-shames Baani to her father. Gucci is hurt, so he hurts her back — mature behavior for a 31-year-old, er, 24-year-old. But Baani’s dad is no chump. He restores the deleted material from Gucci’s phone and says they’ll need three more days to go through it all.

Baani finds that Gucci messages his exes too, along with lots of other random women. He requests photos of them under the guise of casting for a movie that doesn’t exist. (The fake movie’s title — “Lovelorn Tribal Woman” — is the only funny part of the film). He still has an active Tinder account.

Worse, Gucci is the account holder for a social media handle that he and dozens of other men from his college use to prank each other and harass people, including occasional blackmail and extortion. Someone’s been using the account to sexually harass Baani, in fact.

Gucci’s response to this revelation? “Baani, boys do this.” Boyhood now extends to age 31, er, 24, I guess.

In reality, this is where Baani would dump Gucci’s skeevy ass. They’ve both been miserable since the phone swap experiment started. She has proof that he’s a creep, and he doesn’t trust her anymore anyway. What is there to salvage?

But this is an extremely conventional Bollywood romcom. The “happy” ending is determined from the outset, regardless of what happens in the film. None of the big social problems introduced are interrogated in any meaningful way. The female lead suffers, and the male lead decides the outcome. Roll credits.

To be fair to the actors, there’s no one who could have made Loveyapa into a good movie. Yet it is fair to question their contributions to its awfulness. Kapoor has starred in three movies in her young career, and her performances have been fine. She’s not without potential, but she hasn’t done anything to stand out from her peers yet. When you come from a famous family, you can coast on being cute for a while — but not forever.

Khan’s experience as a stage actor isn’t translating to movies yet. There was an awkwardness to the way he moved in his debut Maharaj, and it’s present here, too. If not for his famous father, I suspect he’d have started in supporting roles or unconventional character parts. Nothing about him screams “Bollywood leading man” yet. Maybe he’ll achieve that some day, but his next career move needs careful consideration.

Again, Kapoor and Khan aren’t solely to blame for Loveyapa. It’s regressive and sexist and devoid of humor. Watching it is a dispiriting waste of time.

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Movie Review: Maharaj (2024)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Maharaj on Netflix

Maharaj recounts a legal case of historic importance but fails to stir the emotions around its sensitive subject matter.

The main story takes place in Bombay in 1862 and focuses on journalist Karsandas Mulji (Junaid Khan, son of Aamir Khan). Growing up in Gujarat, young Karsan questioned everything, refusing to follow orders on blind faith. By the time he was 30, he was an established social reformer, activist, and writer.

A devout Hindu, Karsan worships at a sect run by a charismatic religious figure — or maharaj — called JJ (Jaideep Ahlawat). The other holy men at the place of worship appreciate JJ for expanding the sect’s reach and growing its coffers.

In return, JJ exploits his peers’ permissive attitude and his followers’ blind faith to indulge in what the movie calls “erotic escapades.” He uses tradition to pressure young women devotees into having sexual intercourse with him under the moniker of “divine service.” Other men pay to watch, promised that witnessing the act will help them achieve salvation.

Theology also enables this sexual abuse. Holy texts are written in Sanskrit, which most lay people can’t read. The maharaj interprets scripture for the laity, who lack the knowledge to challenge his interpretations. It’s akin to the language barrier which separated Catholic lay people from the liturgy until the 1960s, at which point priests were finally allowed to conduct mass in local languages rather than exclusively in Latin. The parallels between the abusive culture in Maharaj and the abuse abetted by the Catholic Church is hard to miss — though the film goes out of its way to frame JJ as a lone bad actor without blaming Hinduism as a whole.

JJ’s abuse comes to light when he sets his sights on Karsan’s fiancée Kishori (Shalini Pandey), and Karsan witnesses her partaking in “divine service.” Though she’s uncomfortable about what happened with JJ — it’s unclear whether she knew she was being observed by strangers — her faith refuses to allow her to question the leader’s intentions. Only when Karsan breaks their engagement does she realize she may have been wronged by the holy man.

Kishori’s mistreatment prompts Karsan to write about JJ’s sexual abuse in his newspaper. JJ responds with social pressure, witness intimidation, and even arson. When Karsan refuses to back down, JJ sues him for libel for an astronomical amount of money.

The way the events are portrayed in Maharaj — which is directed by Siddharth P. Malhotra and written by Sneha Desai, Vipul Mehta, and Bernard Williams — Karsan prints his allegations with little in the way of concrete proof, so there actually is an interesting question as to whether JJ has a case. Unfortunately, the courtroom scenes show little of the legal back-and-forth and primarily set up Karsan’s climactic speech (though JJ does give a few theatrical shows of power that are entertaining).

Overall, the film falls into an uneasy space where it doesn’t hit the emotional parts of the story as hard as it could have for a real melodrama, nor does it delve into the details like a legal drama or film on investigative journalism. It’s undoubtedly watchable, but it feels like a very well done made-for-TV movie.

Ahlawat is perfectly cast as the slimy JJ, maintaining an infuriating air of self-assurance throughout. Pandey is sympathetic as the duped Kishori. Shavari Wagh appears midway through the film as Karsan’s admirer, Viraaj, but the comic relief she’s asked to provide feels out of place.

Khan is under the microscope as a star’s son his first lead role, and he performs okay as Karsan. It’s a tough role to play in a story this tepid. Khan is very tall, and there’s a physical awkwardness to the way he moves — like a foal on unsteady legs. Being that he’s a newcomer, it’s hard to know if that’s his characterization of Karsan or simply him.

Malhotra and studio Yash Raj Entertainment tread carefully with this story about a corrupt holy man to avoid inflaming tensions unnecessarily, resulting in a movie that pulls its punches. Unfortunately, the folks who were always going to be mad about it got mad anyway, and the rest of us got a movie that was good but not great.

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