0.5 Star (out of 4)
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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