Genre: Romantic Drama
Duration: 141 minutes
Love Aaj Kal 2 is a film that spans the timeless era of the 1990s and the urbane ‘friends with benefits’ culture of 2020s. It encapsulates the obstacles that relationships faced and continue to experience even today, whilst projecting the obvious 30-year generational gap between the two periods.
Imtiaz Ali, is the writer and director of the film, and he maintains his narrative from his directorial debut Love Aaj Kal. However, this time instead of father Saif Ali Khan, it is the daughter Sara Ali Khan playing one of the lead protagonists being paired opposite the current chocolate boy of B-Town Karthik Aryaan. While some may perceive that Love Aaj Kal 2 would follow the predictable plot lines from its earlier prequel. Imitiaz manages to re-kindle the magic moments even as he infuses pop hook-up culture with the timeless romance of the 90s.
Khan plays the role of Zoe Chauhan, a complex character with a five-year plan to open her own event management company. As is always the norm, this plan has no room for love. But soon enough Veer (Kartik Aryaan) comes along and although she keeps trying to push him away he is like a love sick puppy following her around and jumping at all her orders.
We also meet Leena (Aarushi Sharma) taking you back to 1990 who keeps sending mixed messages to Raghu who is played by both Aryan as the younger version and Randeep Hooda as the older version. The only problem is the flashbacks to 1990 are frequently interrupted or cut-off to a degree which makes it very hard for the audience to follow and understand the script.
Khan looks stunning in her role raising the bar of a glamourous modern Indian girl to another notch. However, she does not quite pull off the high powered millennial she is supposed to be and instead comes across a little bit over the top and appears to be trying too hard. Aryan does well in his role as Raghu however as Veer you beg to question whether the director should have chosen a more suitable actor. If we look back at the trailer there is an obvious reason why Aarushi Sharma is not given enough screen time, but the dark horse of the movie is clearly Randeep Hooda. He is the saviour of the film with his “been-there-done-that, worn the proverbial t-shirt” attitude.
While Love Aaj Kal 2 celebrates a unique dettached era of complex relationship, Ali and his characters appear to be trying too hard to build up on the leagcy of the first movie. This sequel falters in the second half following the themes, format and fails to weave the audiences’ absolute attention despite having some spell-binding moments.
Some fans have even taken to twitter to express their disbelief with one stating “Imtiaz Ali made ‘Love Aaj Kal(2)’ to make SRKians feel better for ‘Jab harry met Sejal’ basically stating that SRK’s Jab Harry Met Sejal was a flop but this was even worse.”
Love Aaj Kal 2 does make you feel that sometimes when a writer/director has a hit they should leave it like that and not try and build on it with a sequel.
