Watching Loveyapa is a total siyapa

Loveyapa Is A Flimsy Rom-Com That Struggles For Both Laughs & Legitimacy

The problem with Loveyapa is that it simply can’t quite earn its name. The film sadly feels like a liquidation of star heritage rather than a coherent attempt at telling something worth saying, Manik Sharma reviews.

IN A SCENE from Loveyapa , a man scrolls through his girlfriend’s old chats. One of them catches his eyes. Flirtation, fling, the hint of a history with another man? All of it plays out as staged skit, with said man and woman sitting on a couch, performing the chat for us. It’s how sitcoms mime the real world for effect. But here the connotation is anxiety. So much of our world now exists inside our phones that it’s a possibility, that proportionally at least, a lot of our life has now been uploaded to this invisible place where we are nothing but data points. What would these conversations look like if they happened for real, in here where we live, breath and die? It’s not the question that Loveyapa is concerned with but comes pretty close to probing. Other than that accidental relevance, this flimsy rom-com struggles for both laughs and legitimacy.

Aamir Khan’s son Junaid plays Gaurav — aka Gucci — a sloppy techie who has a habit of trivialising everything. From marriage to adulting, from friendships to social contracts, he is aloof, withdrawn but playful. Your typical gen-Z, live-as-it-comes kind of guy. On the other hand, there is Baani played by Khushi Kapoor, your average pixie girl who dreams of commitment, dates a man who is comparatively sorted; she exudes a kind of naive innocence, takes Gaurav for his word, even though he says everything in a manner that simply can’t be trusted. It’s the classic, male-coyness-meets-feminine-concern routine. Both call each other gooey terms like ‘bubu’, ‘baanibu’ underlining the ethereal nature of identity today. You are what you are called or seen as.

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Baani’s father Atul, a career lawyer and a financial miser, played by the scene-stealing Ashutosh Rana, upends their chemistry of sorts by petitioning a challenge. If both like each other as much as they claim they must exchange their phones for 24 hours and put their relationship through a modern beta test. Rana is easily the boss in the room, shouldering above everyone’s calibre managing to turn his puritanism into a conceit for something more cheerful. In one scene he haggles with a delivery guy for three rupees of change. “ Peshaab aur hisaab hamesha saaf hona chahiye ,” he declares. The central premise of the film hinges on the applicability of the cellphone as a mirror of the self. Punctuated by such empty one-liners. Like Akshay Kumar’s raucous Khel Khel Mein , technology is both the conduit and the message. But unlike that film, the secrets are neither fun nor convincing.

Directed by Advait Chandan, the film tries to recycle the Tamil hit, the more aptly titled Love Today . Loveyapa , a moniker arrived at the combination of love and 'siyapa', though neither possesses the charm nor the chaos of the original. It’s a film fitting of a Kapil Sharma skit which is least surprising since Kiku Sharda plays a duplicitous, husband-to-be in a world where marriages and marital aspirations seem to be the only thing occupying everyone. People hardly get anything done, which might be an accidental observation but feels more like a creative blindspot. A needless ask turns into a casual examination of modern love, but none of it is carried out with any nuance. Frankly, Pyaar Ka Punchnama , its sexism notwithstanding, offered a far more effective state-of-the-generation portrayal than this feeble attempt.

As for the two star kids on display, both Khushi and Junaid try but are easily upstaged by the veterans around them. It’s like watching teenagers being schooled in real-time by people who know the job and can pull it off even in the absence of assistance and creative direction. Chandan’s vision lacks a clear pitch, has a fair bit of verve, but little to no patience to be conservative about what it intends to say and what it can say. Junaid, for example, is given a million zingers to dispense with. All energy, but little soul. He has the dreamy, focused eyes of his father, but can’t summon his presence or staid beauty. Kapoor on the other hand, is chirpy but plastic. A shaky presence in an otherwise wobbly narrative.

The problem with Loveyapa is that it simply can’t quite earn its name. It’s pitched as a battle of two Delhis, North Indian biases, and loud-mouthed angst against the prevailing cultures of the age. But it can’t quite mix humour with the dry wit required to engineer a generational catharsis. Unfortunately, it can’t even exact the punchlines needed to pull through a skimpy, grade-B examination of spoilt brats. Even its socio-economic setting is confusing. There is a gathering of young men, of testosterone-charged conversations, but the film sadly feels like a liquidation of star heritage rather than a coherent attempt at telling something worth saying. It feels forcibly hatched rather than creatively birthed. Technology, social media and AI are all fascinating hooks, but there is not a story or startling insight in sight here to back any of it up. There is, though the promise that both these kids can’t be as bad the next time they are on screen together or mercifully far away from each other.

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