Friday 31 July 2009

Love Aaj Kal (2009)

Love Aaj Kal ( Love Today & yesterday) has been one of this summer's eagerly anticipated movies, so off i went to the cinema to see what this film has to offer and here are my quick thoughts on the movie

Synopsis

Jai ( Saif Ali Khan) and Meera are a modern hip couple who live in London, when work and life opportunities arise, they decide to spilt up, however they still remain good friends, they even have a break up party. At the end of the party Jai meets Veer Singh (Rishi kapoor) who's suprised at Jai's casual manner over his split, he tells him him about how love meant a lot more in his days and in a series of flashbacks the love story between a young Veer (played by Saif Ali Khan in a turban) and Harleen ( Shweta Gulati), whom he sees and falls in love with at first sight, the movie then keeps going back and forth showing us Love Today between Jai and Meera and Love Yesterday between Veer and Harleen.

Anyway back to Love Aaj (Today) and Meena is settling into her life in Delhi, she and Jai retain a good friendship and they text and tell each other about their new loves, dates etc. Jai meets Jo and the two start dating, simultaneously Meera not wanting to be left out too starts dating her boss Rahul Khanna. When Jai's new girlfriend decides on a trip to India Jai goes with her and he takes the opportunity to revisit Meena, the two have a wild time together and indulge in a litle romance, the tables turn when they both appear at a New year's eve party and Rahul who is Meena's boss proposes to her, Meena then asks Jai what he thinks about his proposal, Jai is not forthcoming about his feelings and Meena asks him to get away from her sight never to return thus resulting in a second break up


My Nit Picks about this movie
As much as i watch fun brainlesss movies, this is one where i guess i actually tried to switch my brain on

I found the constant flashback scenes a bit unnecessary, a one time look at Veer and Harleen's relationship should have been sufficient to set their story up the constant flashbacks were distracting and confusing

I found this film regressive in a bad way, this is the year 2009 and a modern hip girl like Meera would have known what she wants, Meera's character doesn't seem to have a mind of her own, why did she have to wait till she had walked round the fire a whopping 7 times to realise she didn't love her husband as much as Jai, and since she and jai had broken up and he had a girlfriend of his own what was the need to seek his approval?

The characters emotions are laughable rather than cry and sympathise with the characters, i actually found myself laughing at their stupidity and self caused calamity

While i'm not a moralist in the strictest sense, Meera and Jai are rewarded for their selfish, self centred attitudes at the expense of other peoples feelings, in this case Rahul (Meena's husband) is left to bear the brunt of the love she still feels for Jai

I'm not even going to praise anyones performance here as i didn't like the story line too much at all, they all played their parts well but the entire thing crumbled in my eyes due to the storyline

Overall i was hugely disappointed in this movie the happy ending was so cliched and the whole thing as i've said was so regressive, like one of those melodramatic over the top love stories in 70's/80's bollywood

What i liked about this movie

The first half of the movie was much more bearable, i liked the way it showed Jai and Meera's post break up relationship and how they kept each other involved in their activities

Neetu Singh's appearance, although she appears in a cameo role

Deepika, even though her character as Meena is flawed and in some aspects has little to do which eventually reduces her character to the atypical filmi love girl, Deepika oozes screen presence and vah, vah, vah, so much beauty

The gorgeous locales and the songs, i don't care wherever Pritam copied it from, the songs were top notch, from the sweet sounds of Chori bazaar, to the fun dancey the twist and the super fun 'aahun aahun' which definitely has to be one of the biggest earworms of the year so far

Total Score: 4.5/10

I know people are going to compare this to Jab we Met but they're two different films in my own opinion, i was more in tune with the characters of Jab we met but i felt emotionally detached from the ones in Love Aaj Kal, at the points where they got emotional i actually laughed at them

Edited to Add

According to imdb Love Aaj kal is said to be based on the 2005 chinese film Zui Hao De Shi Guang

18 comments:

Shellie said...

Well, that was quick! I was eagerly awaiting this one, but there are STILL no movies playing at the theatre nearest me. So far, this year's releases really seem like they are falling well under expectations, which is such a shame considering what we were reduced to due to the strike. What's next?

Bhargav Saikia said...

Woop! That's a bad rating (4.5)! I'm watching LAK today..will get back to your post after that. Thanks for the review :-)

bollyviewer said...

O thats bad! I had high hopes of this one. Sounds like another Salaam Namaste which I thought was rather annoying.

dustedoff said...

I'm glad I read your review. I'd read a newspaper review yesterday which praised this film to the skies (and no, I'm not one of those who think newspaper reviews are the gospel truth) and had been contemplating seeing the film. Now I am quite definitely not going to see it.

Thank you for bearing it for us!

bollywooddeewana said...

@ Shell Love aaj kal works for some, but to me it didn't strike me a s particularly outstanding, wait for the dvd release and see for yourself

@ Bhargav You're welcome, i would love to read your take on it

@ bollyviewer i enjoyed Salaam Nammaste as i wasn't expecting much out of it but this movie was marketed as fresh and like as if nothing like this had ever been done

@ dusted off you're welcome, this was my personal opinion that i felt while watching, i really expected a lot from this but others seem to like it but the points i listed is what really bothered me about this film

ajnabi said...

Awwww, bummer. I'm really disappointed but I appreciate your review.

dunkdaft said...

Ahh..well, i liked flashback scenes the most. And oh, you counted how many times she realizes?? But yes, screen presence of Deepika is good. So are the gorgeous locales. And awesome soundtrack.

bollywooddeewana said...

@ Ajnabi thanks

@ Darshit Glad we have both found some common grounds, i'm off to read your review of it now

Nicki said...

Wow! You saw it already? Low rating but appreciate your honesty. I have no desire to see it...yet! :)

Sujoy said...

Deepika's screen presence...u kidding me...I'd rather watch OSO to feel her onscreen presence...

yes, I do agree that Meera's character has not been done justice at all...she has been carved out as a bit mentally confused..does that apply because she believes in fresco..lol.

Beth Loves Bollywood said...

Wow. We totally disagree! :) I do think you raise a good point about Meera's thoughtlessness towards her fiancee/husband. She had no business marrying him and she knew it - marriage is not a good way to try to get over somebody else.

AMODINI said...

Wow - I'm with Beth on this :-) I really liked it. I'm not sure why you thought it regressive - and this might be a personal viewpoint, but being modern/hip has nothing to do with knowing what you want.

I thought Meera's character did have a mind of her own - ** SPOILER ALERT ** enough to break up with her new husband, which is a big deal, no ? And yes I do think Jai was selfish, Meera not as much.

I don't think that love is an all-or-nothing deal, there are several shades of grey in between, and the movies characters displayed that. Pretty realistic, from my perspective. Probably why I liked it so much.

bollywooddeewana said...

@ Amodini regressive because why did it have to be after marriage,could she not have done it before or while the procession was taking place, plus after a couple of months, the two meet with a sense of expectancy like 'i know she'll be waiting for me' kind of thing and then just continue their relationship while someone else suffers, in this case Vikram.

It rememinded me of chandni, i loved that movie but i hated the way Vinod was treated maybe its my feelings and sense of dissatisfaction TOWARDS THE HURT PARTY that i brought towards Love aaj kal

AMODINI said...

Hmmm. . . watched Chandni a while back - do not remember enough to comment on Vinod's treatement. However, in general I do agree with you; Bollywood-ian scripts seem to have very little regard/sympathy for the "hurt" party.

But in Love Aaj Kal, I thought they actually were sensitive. I did not think that Meera was using Vikram to make up her mind, she actually married him believing it would work (from what I could tell). And I thought it a plus, that when she figured out that it wouldn't, she actually had the guts and the honesty to tell him - in the interests of not doing HIM more damage. She could have stayed with Vikram, and not told him - Jai was unavailable anyway, right ? But she didn't - not for herself, for him. And that speaks volumes about her character.

Her making the mistake of marriage is realistic, because she was fallible (just like the rest of us). I'm getting on my philosophical high horse here, but LAK was nice for me because it did not show perfect people (if she had been perfect she would have realised, as you said before the marriage itself). Meera made mistakes, and she lived with them, and tried to make it better.

bollywooddeewana said...

Hmmm, you make some good points i'll have to watch it again when it comes on Dvd

Tiff said...

I thought it was nice, just nothing outstanding that would make me want to watch it over and over.

I liked that Meera went ahead and told Vikram how she felt and didn't stick around...but I was never convinced that she wanted to say yes to Vikram's proposal much less go through with the wedding so I wished she would have got the confession to Vikram out at an earlier point.

Overall I did enjoy it, but not enough to wanna see it again. The songs were very nice...plus my best friend and I were the only two people watching it so no annoying laughter/cell phones from others made it quite pleasant :D.

Oh, I definitely get makeup inspiration from Bollywood even though I haven't posted any Bollywood type looks on my blog(I'm sure I eventually will though). My favorite look at the moment is Madhuri's makeup in Maar Dala from Devdas.

bollywooddeewana said...

True thats one thing i was annoyed with if she had actually told him before hand, like you what really put me off it was that it was marketed as this outstanding movie, i was disappointed which i guess translated into my write up.

of course Madhuri's make up in Devdas was very heavy but still fresh, i would keep my eyes out when i watching some oldies, you need to see bolly make up in the late 60's/ early 70's the eyeliners were to die for, i'll keep an eye out while making screencaps

Mansi said...

I could never warm up to this film... cardboard characters... i felt least sympathetic to anyone/anything...
a waste of time... the only nice thing about the film was the end ;) Neetu Singh comes as a pleasant surprise after 2 and a half hours of hogwash!

(i love the couple- Rishi + Neetu = awesomeness!!)