Love Aaj Kal movie review: Imtiaz Ali fails to recreate the magic

In 2009, Imtiaz Ali directed a film titled Love Aaj Kal. The movie starred Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone in the lead roles and it was a damn good film. Now, after 11 years, Imtiaz Ali has directed one more film titled Love Aaj Kal. So, of course, the expectations from the film were quite high, but this film fails to impress us.

The movie is set in two eras 1990 (Kal) and 2020 (Aaj). The story set in 2020 is about Zoe (Sara Ali Khan) and Veer (Kartik Aaryan). The former is a career-oriented woman and feels that she can't manage a relationship and career together. Raj (Randeep Hooda), a cafe owner tells Zoe about his love story (1990) and then she gets attracted to the old school romance and falls for Veer. But soon, she realises how she is comprising her career and it changes a lot of things between her and Veer.

The story of the film is not much impressive. We are living in 2020, and girls are proving that they can manage their career as well as their relationship quite well. Even the story set in the 90s isn’t that great. But Imtiaz Ali’s narration makes the 90s part watchable. However, the director goes totally haywire with the 2020 part. The script is confusing and even the characters are not written very well especially the character of Zoe. While the screenplay is weak, even Imtiaz Ali as a director fails to recreate the magic of what he did in 2009. The movie doesn’t connect with us at all. The only time we feel a bit emotional is when we watch Randeep Hooda crying in the film.

Talking about actors, Sara Ali Khan’s performance is the weakest element of the film. She was so good in Kedarnath and Simmba, but in Love Aaj Kal, she disappoints. Kartik Aaryan is good as the young Raj (90s), but as Veer, his performance is quite weak. Also, the much-hyped chemistry between Kartik and Sara is strictly average. Arushi Sharma, who makes her debut with the film, looks pretty and leaves a mark with her performance. Simone Singh as Zoe's mother is quite good.

Well, now let’s talk about Randeep Hooda. The actor is actually the saving grace of the film. He is looking damn good and has performed amazingly. As we said earlier, it’s one of his scenes that make us a bit emotional while watching the film. Randeep is actually the soul of the movie.

Coming to music, the songs of the film are quite good and Pritam has done a great job here.

Overall, this Love Aaj Kal fails to impress, so it's better you go on an OTT platform and watch 2009 release Love Aaj Kal again.

Ratings: 2/5

Watch the trailer here…