Love Aaj Kal Review : No Jab We Met
All along while watching Love Aaj Kal, I was constantly reminded of Jab We met. The mannerism of the movie, the overall feel, the characterization of the lead female protagonist and her dialogues, they all had the distinct Imtiaz Ali touch. The movie largely feels fresh. There are sequences which are definitely typical Imtiaz Ali specials. But overall, this movie falls short of being a movie that you’d love to watch again. Sure it’s worth a one time watch, it’s a way better film than the usual Bollywood hits raking the mullah in the box office (Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif starrers), but this movie is no Jab We Met either.
If Imtiaz Ali’s movies are about spontaneity of the female protagonists, exuberance and free spirit, absence of melodrama, and stories largely in the realm of believability, then this film also for the most part delivers on these things. The movie has a typical rom-com feel-good candy floss feel about it but it also suffers from the typical commercial Bollywood ailments like throwing in totally unnecessary songs at unwarranted situations and breaking the build up of the narrative.
LAK has all the components which made JWM such a lovable movie. Right in the beginning of the movie there’s Mohit Chauhan’s song, but sadly unlike JWM, here the song feels forced. Sufficient build up is absent. Audience won’t connect with the feeling of the song.
In the same vein, there are many sequences which break the Bollywood cliche, which deliver the exact opposite of what you see in typical Bollywood movies but then You had seen extremely similar sequences in JWM. So, the audience almost knows what’s going to happen. Due to the predictability this film doesn’t have the surprise element that JWM had.At half time, my feeling was that it was more like a let down. The second half though was decidedly better.
Rishi Kapoor churns out another warm performance and it was always going to be a difficult task for Saif Ali Khan to play the younger Rishi Kapoor and manage being as affable and warm as Rishi. I personally felt this was a real letdown. Saif shouldn’t have played the younger Rishi. I started having huge problems in accepting the movie right there.
As far as the story line is concerned, among the two love stories portrayed, the old love story is great while the new one is largely irritating. Except for the Mohit Chauhan song, the music of this film is a deterrent and the absence of it would have served the movie much better.
Acting wise this could be Deepika Padukone’s best effort so far. She looked very natural and was not woody woody unlike her earlier movies. Saif Ali khan turns out another usual confused-funny-saif-type performance. Rishi kapur is heart warming and how You wish he somehow pulled of playing his younger avatar too.
The movie has all the wonderful locations – London, San Francisco, Delhi and Kolkata, places which offer tremendous potential for beautiful cinematography, and then there are the usual slo mo’s, the flashbacks but some how, they all prove the same thing, you need a good story at the heart of it.
In conclusion I’d say this movie is definitely an watchable one. But unless you are a teen ager or going through the first major infatuation of your life, you may not wish to see it again. Much more was expected of Imtiaz Ali and while this movie through numerous sequences is a testimony to his special touch, it just fails to create those cinematic moments of magic that one associates with him. This film may go down as a major box office hit but wouldn’t satisfy Imtiaz fans.
P.S. Comparing this movie to Jab We Met in the title as well as in the content of this post might seem like an unfair foundation, but the biggest reason why this movie succeeds may be just Jab We Met.
Tags: "jab we met", Imtiaz Ali, Love Aaj Kal
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
come on man! like jab we whatever is a benchmark!
Comparing two art forms is a sin.
Well, for me, JWM was just about bearable.. but LAK was so lame and mediocre..total time and money waste for me..Nothing more to write about this movie..
Jab we met is not a benchmark to compare (Socha na Tha was far better a mv compared to JWM). Movie is not as bad as projected.
jab we met is a poor half brained copy of before sunrise n before sunset….pls grow up.i love this indian film movement pioneered by anurag kashyap but watever else sucks big time…ramu was better in his failed movement atleast.
seen the movie ..i had earlier commented on anurag kashyap’s blog 3 filmmakers 3 films that the film seems more like a hum tum or siddharth anand type and it will be a major disappointment . well the film does indeed look more like a yash raj film than imtiaz . does have the ‘ jab we met , socha na tha moments..not a major disappointment but surely a let down . i agree with most of what the reviewer here has said . infact i liked the older love story much more , the newer one is irritating , trying to be funny and i got that feel even through the promos.Rishi kapoor is a class act as always. what also goes against the film is that unlike is other two films this one needed much more work on the script and that it seems hasnt been done.
Hi Sags,
Completely agree with You. I also felt Saif looked old in the movie. In a similar role in one of the YRF movies I had liked Ranbir kapoor alongside Deepika Padukone. Rishi Kapoor’s love story was the real good part of this movie. It reminded a lot about Oye Lucky’s Lucky’s childhood part also.
@Tushar,Sivakumar and Cherish, this movie is so full of Jab We Met reference moments that you can’t help sitting there and not automatically comparing the two. There are the train scenes, many dialogues and sequences which reminds you of JWM, Mohit Chauhan’s song like “Tum se hi”, background music with bagpipers and flash backs which all felt JWM deja vu. But the point remains, Jab We Met was a story that one felt and the love story between Deepika Padukone and Saif Ali Khan here was typical YRF-Sidharth Anand one.
yuck man. see some nice film soon and get out of these depressing film memories soon. amen. :-)
what nonsense yaar, through out his review he compared it with jab we met……..stupid! the movie is very good!
How can anyone come out of that theater thinking Love Aaj Kal is even remotely a good film? It’s painstakingly irritating; Confused characterization, lackluster dialogs, ghissy phitty plot lines, less than mediocre acting, wasted songs. And to make the matters worse, the reviewers are biased too along with some of the members of PFC. It’s like everyone is trying hard to like this film, including one Mr. Kashyap.
I fully support when everyone comes in favor of another mediocre film like Sankat City, because despite everything, it’s still attempting to be different. Love Aaj Kal enjoys no such benefit. It’s a mainstream film made like any other mainstream film in this city and it has to be dealt with accordingly, as another bad mainstream film.
I can actually see Imtiaz Ali deteriorating since his first Socha Na Tha, which I still think is his most honest film.
I’ll feel really bad if good filmmakers too bite the dust and turn into Satish Kaushiks and Dharmesh Dharshans…
@ Amir R Jaffar,sags and Tushar
I totally agree with you guys..
I saw this film FSFS only because Anurag sir recommended it high time on his most anticipated film lists..
And it turned out to be a huge letdown not only for me,also for the entire group of movie addicts we went with..
The major drawback of LAK is its very weak characterization and character study of the protagonists(and i highly doubt wheteher they have done any),that when they express their so-called feelings for each other towards the end of the movie,they dont seem to have any relevance..
it is a projected as a love story and we(from an audience P.O level)are not getting that vibe of the “love” part..
Exception was the DOP n it is worthy of a praise,but the polished presentation of locales n characters made it all felt like yet another hyper-hyped YRF cooked hindi movie..
Also the songs were wasted,though not a single tune is worth even humming..
And for the south side PFC readers,I strongly felt its major plot could be a rip-off of our Subramaniapuram 80’s love part(many of us was pointing it in theatre yest) and i am not blaming Imtiaz for it,because i still have faith in him just because of his SOCHA NA THA which was wonderfull and still worth of re-watch..
And adding up one more line:Stop using JWM as a bench mark for all love stories as it was a dumb,exagerrated and over-rated movie of recent times..
Thanks and Enjoy a great day folks..
~MOVIES MAKES MY LIFE TICK TICK TICK~
Definitely LAK could not meet the expectations.. could have been much better… I wish there was more of the old love story..
Excellent Review and excellently ended, it is indeed true that the audience will come only because of JWM. The music is terrible, and I did not know that Imtiaz made so much money from JWM, that he could afford buying middle name Chora for himself. I am very disappointed Imtiaz Chopra Ali.
Hi,
I agree, this is Imitiaz’s worst to date. Very disappointing. More disappointing is Anurag Kashyap being 0/2 with his recent recos.
Regards,
Santino
The old story was charming, the new one tried to stick like strong velcro to being practical.
But it was enjoyable while it lasted, and one of the better mainstream films recently.
Guess Kaminey has its chance to get into that top of the year slot.
The movie left me with mixed feelings.
I loved the old loved story set in the sixties, which i felt was beautifully handled by imtiaz. Saif was very good as the sardar. I really felt on i could connect with the characters. The 60s era was superbly created, the mannerisms an all..even though the story was one which has been witnessed on the hindi screen a zillion times.
On the other hand, I found the modern love story was to contrived and just plain irritating.Although Saif was good ,deepika seriously needs to get some acting lessons. Also, i could never really connected with the couple. Rishi saab however was brilliant as usual.Keep it coming sir.