Star Cast: Ahaan Panday, Aneet Padda, Varun Badola
Director: Mohit Suri
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What’s Bad: A wasted opportunity to present a serious ailment sensitively
Loo Break: Frequently in the second half
Watch or Not?: If you like the dark style of Mohit Suri movies. Or if you relish new pairs, especially talented ones.
Language: Hindi
Available On: Theatrical release
Runtime: 156 Minutes
User Rating:
Saiyaara is a love story between hot-headed and beleaguered-by-circumstances singer-composer Krish Kapoor (Ahaan Panday) and Vaani Batra (Aneet Padda), who is a poet and songwriter (in the Indian sense, that is, a lyrics writer). Vaani is forgetful and has also been deceived at the altar (a registered wedding) by a callous jerk, Mahesh Iyer (Shaan R. Grover). After months of depression, she gets an opening as an intern in a media house and also encounters Krish, when he hands over her diary of lyrics that she had forgotten when she tripped on the road and collected her scattered things.
Their acquaintance grows, and soon, she becomes his songwriter. Krish dreams of big-time stardom as a musician, itself a thorny road beset with many obstacles, largely (other people’s) ego-driven. He also has a father (Varun Badola) who has taken to alcoholism to drive away his grief of losing his wife, instead of comforting and supporting Krish. There is a rift there as well.
As Krish starts going up the scale towards fulfilling his dream, Vaani is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, rare in young people, and her forgetfulness increases and worsens when Mahesh returns to her life, first as a partner in her workplace and then as the sponsor of a key musical show by Krish. And one not-at-all-fine day, Vaani goes missing. For a whole year. What happens next?
Sankalp Sadanah’s story and screenplay are barely sensitive and even less sensible. Full of loopholes in logic as such a story should not be, we get a barrage of maudlin, melodramatic, synthetic emotions. For all its weaknesses, this is yet another ‘schizophrenic’ movie, in the sense that the first half is very promising in execution and the lively sequences, while the second half seems a different kettle of fish(-y happenings, given the premise!). Among the worst such films I have watched, off-the-cuff, are Kyun?…Ho Gaya Na (2004) and Shirin Farhad Ki To Nikal Padi (2013). Get what I mean?
The script makes a serious issue like Alzheimer’s very convenient, unlike the languorous but far more sensitive U Me Aur Hum (2008). Vaani remembers at just the script-wise right moments, and forgets as expediently. The climax is inordinately stretched and absurd, and the finale is as commodious. The dialogues are a mix of cliched, wannabe-cult, and realistic.
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Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda shine in their debut film. The former seems to be quite a star package and is a very able performer in a role tailor-made for his persona. But he must junk his tendency towards projecting a Sanjay Dutt-like hangdog persona.
Aneet Padda looks like a cross between Bhagyashree and Ranjeeta, and except for a few sequences where her expressions seem static or fixed, has a definite charm and grace, and delivers a fine performance. Seasoned actors like Rajiv Kumar and Varun Badola have nothing much to do, but Alam Khan as KV and Geeta Agrawal as Vaani’s mother impress.
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Mohit Suri’s real need is to reinvent and come out of the Vishesh Films’ cage. Up to 2014, he was mostly in sync with audience tastes, so it is difficult right now to gauge whether he has been stuck in a time-warp or seems to have gone astray in his quest to be ‘with it’. Or both! Note Hamari Adhuri Kahani, Half Girlfriend, Malang, and Ek Villain Returns.
The use of very Vishesh Films’ style background scoring, lyrics, and music (by a ‘coterie’ of music makers) further strengthens the third alternative. The iconic Irshad Kamil writes Humsafar, and the hugely talented but rarely heard Rajshekhar pens Tum ho to, but the music is oh-so-humdrum and again the ‘Vishesh’ style, which as of now does not sound ‘Vishesh’ (extraordinary) at all.
This is yet another downer this year, with talented newcomers getting short shrift thanks to absurd and finally myopic filmmaking.
Two stars!
Saiyaara releases on 18th July, 2025.
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