Film: Love Aaj Kal
Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Sara Ali Khan
Director: Imtiaz Ali
Language: Hindi (U/A)
Rating: 2/5
If chaos had a face, it would look like Sara Ali Khan. A girl of high-voltage conflicts, Sara’s Zoe is all it takes to sabotage a smooth love story in ‘Love Aaj Kal’.
Barely in her 20s, Sara can’t wait to motor up the cliff called career. And she wants to strike the perfect work-life balance too.
Our rich girl with a hep existential crisis gets a very patient shoulder to pile her conflicts on — Kartik Aaryan, the Rumi-spouting software engineer who himself is on another painstaking path of self-discovery. He believes in true love. So sex is “no, thanks” till Sara is completely sure and committed.
Imtiaz Ali’s world of love is always populated by raw people on unsure footing who keep flitting back and forth. While his 2009 original of the same title starred two confused lovers (Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone, relatable nevertheless), the 2020 version gets a pretty strong upgrade in disorientation.
For a change, the girl is parading all the phobias here. “Eff the world,” screams Sara. And Kartik Aaryan stands there at the end of the tunnel, with a torch in his hand and restraint painted all over his body.
Torn between the two lovers is the best takeaway of ‘Love Aaj Kal’, Randeep Hooda. As a love guru of sorts, Hooda is one man who cushions the quirky blows of this modern-day, eccentric love.
Okay, love these days is so muddled. But hope Imtiaz Ali doesn’t carry on with the messy franchise.