No Love for Love Aaj Kal

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As the first half of Love Aaj Kal ended and the lights came up in the theatre for the intermission, I felt distinctly underwhelmed. This was an Imtiaz Ali film, and yet it didn't pop – unlike his previous picture, Jab We Met, whose heroine's middle names were probably Snap, Crackle and Pop. It was halfway through the movie – and yet the most noteworthy thing I'd seen was the use of the word 'gist' in a hindi song (they needed something to rhyme with 'twist.') Por que, Imtiaz, por que?

The plot unfolds, with lots of flash-backs and a few flash-forwards (damn you, Lost!) thusly - In present-day London, Jai and Meera meet (the second time) in a club, sparks fly and soon they're in a relationship. After more than a year, Meera decides to move to Delhi, where she's been offered the chance to do mural restoration work and they decide to break up – long-distance relationships never work and they're both mature individuals, not star-struck lovers. So mature, in fact, that they have a combination send-off and break-up party, at which they slow-dance, with long, lingering gazes. The camera does not linger on the faces of their guests, but I'm sure they must have been thinking, "This is soooo awkward. Are they together or not?" Anyway, after the party, the owner of the restaurant, Veer Singh (Rishi Kapoor) tells Jai he's an idiot to have let that girl go, and tells Jai the story of his passionate and all-consuming love for Harleen (Giselle Monteiro) back when he was played by a polyester-clad Saif Ali Khan.

One of the main problems, I felt, is that the present-day romance is supposed to be 'realistic' – Jai does not fall madly in love with Meera the first time he sees her, which is the very first scene of the movie - only they don't really meet and they're simply sharing an elevator. They enter the elevator, they don't look at each other, they exit the elevator. Realistic, right? Who knows, you might have met your future spouse already and not yet know it. But hold on, back up a second. I find it difficult to believe that there are men – purportedly heterosexual men – who are capable of getting into a lift with someone who looks like Deepika Padukone without giving her so much as a glance, let alone a double-take. The very first scene of the movie, and it rings false.

The present-day part of the film isn't helped by the fact that neither Jai nor Meera come across as very sympathetic. Jai comes across as selfish and clueless – he won't see Meera off at the airport because he's lent his car for the day and the flight leaves from Stansted, as if there's no public transport in the greater London area. 'Oh, Meera's fine with that," he says, and I think, "You idiot. You've been dating her for the better part of two years, you've met her family, the least you can do is show up at the airport and wave goodbye!" Alack, the idiocy of men. Later, when he sees Meera after her wedding to Vikram (darling, darling Rahul Khanna) he blathers on and on about his feelings – and which the blathering may have been meant to be a part of the character's charm, it really didn't work for me all the time. Afterwards, he moves to San Francisco as part of his life's dream to work on the Golden Gate bridge and finds the dream isn't all that great without the girl by his side, and I swear, the song picturization at this point was like a Raymond Suitings commercial – see Saif pose around San Fran in nice suits and varying degrees of stubble to match his character's inner angst! I laughed.

Deepika… oh dear, the fact of the matter is that the girl may be ridonkulously pretty and a fabulous clothes horse, but she can't act her way out of a paper bag. The Jai-Meera story is first of all, mostly Jai's story, and Deepika has comparatively little to do besides looking pretty. She does get one really meaty scene – when Meera realizes that perhaps, you can't use logic to deal with relationships; that maybe, the person who seems to not fit with where you are in life makes you happier than the person who is your perfect match. Unfortunately, this realization happens after her marriage to Vikram which inevitably leads to a meltdown. It's Deepika's big moment in the film – and it doesn't work. In stronger hands (Kareena Kapoor or maybe Konkona Sen Sharma) this would have been oscar reel material, but Deepika comes across as more high school drama club. The whole Jai-Meera relationship comes across as rather weak, even platonic sometimes, because Jai, while a bit of a prat, is played by Saif at 100W while Deepika flickers pleasantly at 40W.

Now, the other storyline, where Veer sees Harleen once and falls madly in love is cute, charming and unfortunately, can't account for more than a third of the film's running time. Saif may not be the best choice to play a Sardarji, but the character is easily more lovable than Jai – for example, contrast Veer running to the train station to see Harleen one more time and Jai whining about Stansted being too far out of town. Harleen has maybe two lines in the whole movie (seeing as how the actress is brazilian and doesn't speak hindi) but she comes across more vividly with all that silence than Deepika does with her surfeit of lines. The music, with the exception of 'Dooriyan' is hardly memorable - though can someone tell me why the costumes in the big dance numbers are so fluorescent and gaudy? They were like the costumes in Jab We Met's 'Mauja' number only with more glitter.

I did like the fact that Jai doesn't run to Meera's wedding yelling, "yeh shaadi nahin ho saktaaaaaa!!!" and the fact that Vikram and Saif's girlfriend Jo aren't portrayed negatively simply because they're the other guy and girl, respectively – but that's not enough to make me like the movie. Rent it if you must, but save the cost of a movie ticket to watch Kaminey.