Love Aaj Kal: Idealist then, Juvenile today
‘Love Aaj versus Love Kal’ is the kind of discussion you might enter if you had a couple of hours to kill, and nothing else to discuss. This may appeal to 50+ ‘generation’ with nostalgic reference to the past and perhaps as a way of coming to terms with the ‘fast’ present. In pitting the values of the past against the present one takes on very large issues and yet the results could be vague and inconclusive thus necessitating a nuanced treatment of the subject. Imtiaz Ali’s treatment of Love Aaj Kal is more of the glossy Sunday feature section kind, where ideas are rarely balanced and have conditioned opinions, unsubstantiated comments and forced conclusions.
Jai Vardhan Singh (Saif Ali Khan) has met Meera Pandit (Deepika Padukone) in London. They have had a great time for a couple of years without making any old-fashioned commitments. Then it’s time for Meera to go to India to pursue her career as a restoration artist. Jai’s career dreams can only be fulfilled in San Francisco. And since they are ‘modern’ couple they decide to part ways instead of working out a long distance relationship. So they throw a ‘break-up’ party and go separate ways. Here enters a restaurant owner Sardar (Rishi Kapoor) who is somehow convinced that Jai is in love with Meera and is determined to help him. But Jai is an unwilling disciple and takes his own sweet time to come to a decision. In the mean time he does exactly what they had decided not to do – keep a long distance relationship. And in between Jai’s long and warbled monologues Sardar ji manages to tell his love story – a story of stolen glances, cycle and rickshaw encounters, and rebellion against families – story of a time when professing love meant proposing marriage as it is popularly believed.
The title suggests both a comment on the state of love in the present day and a comparison with how it was in the good old times. If the two love stories were just that – individual stories from different times and cultural backgrounds they would have been kind of cute. There are indeed many good moments in both the story tracks. The problem is that the stories are given representational overtones and the matter worsened by sweeping, generalized observations and statements. It may be acceptable for a character in the film to say that the younger generation is afraid of commitments or that they use their heads not their hearts but can a film with any seriousness draw those conclusions?
The treatment of Raj-Meera relationship is light to the point of being flippant. Their scenes together give a comic quality to the first half of their story. As Jai’s story unfolds one can see certain foolishness in him. And when after much ado he admits to being in love, the error of his ways that was always clear to the audience is finally established for him. Had the treatment of the film remained comic this could have passed, but the film becomes dramatic and finally judgmental on the Bollywood lines that true love happens only once and must be honoured. A man and a woman wanting to pursue their dream careers and not wanting to pursue a trans-continental relationship, their breaking off in an agreeable manner is made to look silly, frivolous, even tragic.
On the other hand, the story of Sardar and Harleen Kaur is treated with uncritical reverence. This story has several beautiful moments but is shown with an authorial tint of romance and idealism – it’s like watching a museum piece, you admire it because it’s really old. The sardar’s story is forcefully coupled with the main story. It appears in conveniently placed conversations between Saif and Rishi Kapoor. Something else that bothered me is the role of the female protagonist Meera. Despite the effort to make her look and behave like a modern, emancipated woman, you don’t get to know what she is thinking. She is never a victim in that none of the decisions are forced on her, and she enjoys the life she has chosen. But on every critical occasion it’s Raj blabbering away while she looks on silently. What is going on in her head? Does she agree with him? Is she as confused as he is? Is she hurt, or is she simply laughing at him? And a non-actor like Deepika doesn’t help the problem either.
Imitiaz Ali continues to show certain talent with dialogues, ‘creating moments’ and extracting natural performances from his cast members. Saif Ali Khan has done very well in playing the sardar. He has worked hard to get the body language right, even if he is less impressive as Raj. The songs in the film are very good although they are not really essential to the narrative of film. The camera and production design make the film look rich and the pace and edit of the film tells you that the director is firmly in control.
Love Aaj Kal is a superior work to Ali’s earlier film, Jab We Met, where the protagonists were near loony; here they are only juvenile.
Tags: Deepika Padukone, Imtiaz Ali, Love Aaj Kal, Padmaja Thakore, Saif Ali Khan
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
This is one of the most intelligent reviews I have read of the film! I don’t always agree with you, but your points have all made me think and might even change my mind in places. Ultimately, though I didn’t find the story(s) particularly fresh or important, I cried throughout the last twenty minutes of the film. If there is one think Imtiaz Ali is good with is emotions, situations of the heart, moments in time. The whole film is more about a mood than a story, really. But I did like Saif Ali Khan much more as the sardar, he had the mannerisms and look down to a T!
sorry for nitpicking on an otherwise smart review, but who is Raj in this whole affair, that u hv mentioned on a couple of occassions? i thought there were Jai, Meera, Veer, Harleen and Vikram as the main protagonists…
Raj is the shahrukh Khan of DDLJ which imtiaz tried to create in this movie..tee hee…
“It may be acceptable for a character in the film to say that the younger generation is afraid of commitments or that they use their heads not their hearts but can a film with any seriousness draw those conclusions?”
i didnt get the point you are trying to make here. correct me if i am wrong – are you trying to say that every character, event, setting in any film needs to be justified? If yes, then its cinema sans imagination
…
“A man and a woman wanting to pursue their dream careers and not wanting to pursue a trans-continental relationship, their breaking off in an agreeable manner is made to look silly, frivolous, even tragic.”
isnt it tragic…shouldnt we atleast give love a chance? this is very relative and is an emotional discourse so, the director has every right to show it his way without him being categorized as judgemental or stereotypical. (you dont say that he is, this is in reference to other reviews on PFC)
and yes, i loved the film. i liked the lack of characterization and a plot with open ended events and circumstances.
there was no plot at all!… it wasnt a character story neither a plot oriented story…
neither a character story…nor a plot oriented story…
cinema is neither the formula based on the character story…nor a plot oriented story…Cheers the experience man !!!
Nice review. I liked the part where you describe Deepika’s role. She had so much to emote about her feelings, but she fails.
On other note, I guess monologues are part of mainstream Bollywood fare, and if they aren’t there the movie might be perceived as an art movie which will be disaster for a movie of such high costs. Audience aren’t yet ready for such kind of movies.
Thanks Satyendra. Stand corrected; should have been Jai instead of Raj.
Good review
foolish film..stupid film…TRYING TO BE film…bored to death!…
Very nice review. Jai and Meera’s relationship came across to me as a “friends with benefits” situation more than true love. So I never connected with the characters and didn’t care whether they realized it or not. Veer and Harleen’s story was way better because the director stayed true to the story line, era and himself.
To me, the director blew it when he tried too hard make the movie extra hip, sauve or cool. The soul and simplicity of his story telling were lost. I thought it was a pretty mediocre movie with mediocre acting. Saif, who is a bundle of talent needs to re-invent himself. But then again, when this movie is the biggest hit of this year so far, he is probably on the right path.
excellent review;these reviews should be published early to save people’s time and they should also be marked separately from sponsored reviews by film producers
i agree when you say “you don’t get to know what she is thinking. Raj blabbering on critical situation while she looks on silently. Does she agree with him? Is she as confused as he is? Is she hurt, or is she simply laughing at him? And a non-actor like Deepika doesn’t help the problem either” but i think thats what the director was trying to show in the film. the whole idea of “aaj” ka love with no strings attached doesn’t involve any emotions what so ever. the silent face, the confused look everything was meant to be there to showcase that these two people inspite of being in love with each other trying to showcase there modernism. deepika still needs to learn lot of things in acting she really needs to emote well but here i guess that emotionless, confused look have been used brilliantly. n if you notice throug out the film there was no crying scene in between jai n meera but there in the end every emotions comes out when deepika is crying in the last scene at purana quila.
great review.
loved this: Love Aaj Kal is more of the glossy Sunday feature section kind, where ideas are rarely balanced and have conditioned opinions, unsubstantiated comments and forced conclusions.
i aint a glossy Sunday feature section kind. so aint gonna watch it, aaj or kal
Loved the review. Dont agree to the conclusion though.
Loved the review!
I watched the movie today itself..and was not unsatisfied with the plot and final output of movie at all..
a very mature product by imtiaz. Though not fully convinced with the careless thinking attitude of youth shown in the movie. People might say i am being judgemental and shouldng draw conclusions out of one particular dilemma depicted in the movie… but just didnt agree the way youth of today has been labelled confused and careless throughout the movie..
great review. about deepika just standing there – is so true – what the heck was the director trying to say, a) thats she’s more mature, if so the next scene doesn’t portray that. anyways i am a NRI and a sucker for imitiaz ali’s screenplay, music, fun and masti, – I love it. i found the last burger chomping saif song as tooo jarring and immature and totally stupid and lazy, point could have been made more intelligently by someone of the calibre of mr.Ali.