A hot mess
LOVE AAJ KAL
Imtiaz Ali
Kartik Aaryan, Sara Ali Khan, Randeep Hooda, Aarushi Sharma
Direction: Actors:
Wtogether. Kartik Aaryan plays Veer, a young man who meets a career-driven young woman named Zoe (Sara Ali Khan) at a bar. He’s sober and stable; she’s high on life and booze. They end up in bed, where Veer suddenly decides he can’t go through with the hook-up. He apparently takes women home but only to tell them that what he really wants is a serious relationship. He then proceeds to stalk Zoe, turning up at the co-working space she uses, which is owned by a man named Raghu (Randeep Hooda), a brooding loner and the cautionary tale in this whole endeavour.
Raghu once gave up everything and moved from Udaipur to Delhi to be with the woman he loved, Leena (played by newcomer Aarushi Sharma), only to cheat on her constantly and then leave her altogether. Back to the lead pair, their romance unfolds thusly. Every time an Uber cancels on Zoe, Veer turns up on his bike to take her wherever she needs to get to. Most of these drop-offs are for business meetings; some are for dates with other men. In the interim, Zoe talks incessantly about her five-year business plan. No relationships till then, she snaps multiple times. Veer is not much of a planner; he’s more the designated driver type. This is apparently a good long game, because Zoe eventually falls for him. And then come the series of conflicts with each other and their inner selves. As they proceed to annoy each other, and you, Randeep pops up from time to time to narrate more bits from his own failed fairy tale. Hearing his story, on a loop, more or less, Sara begins to questions her choices. She’s annoyed, helpless, confused. By this time, you are too. The narrative is so tedious, the dialogue so stilted, that you will actually yawn, if you aren’t already asleep.
I wouldn’t recommend this as a Valentine’s Day date, unless you’re trying to get him / her to walk out.