Aap Jaisa Koi

Aap Jaisa Koi Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: R Madhavan, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Ayesha Raza, and others

Director: Vivek Soni

What’s Good: The music!

What’s Bad: The confusion in resolving the story!

Loo Break: Not necessary!

Watch or Not?: Yes

Language: Hindi

Available On: Netflix

Runtime: 1 hour 54 minutes

User Rating:

Have you ever written a love letter? At any point in your life? To anyone? Or forget love letter to the beloved, have you ever written a letter to anyone you love? Have you ever tried talking to yourself in moments of solitude? Have your written a diary entry? Or to be specific, a letter to yourself? R Madhavan and Fatima Sana Shaikh’s Aap Jaisa Koi is the crux of a lot of these letters combined and executed for a Netflix film!

In today’s day and age, when relationships go through ten thousand stages—from speed dating to ending in a situationship—Vivek Soni distances himself from this fast-moving world and settles amidst an old colony in Jamshedpur with his protagonist, Shrirenu Tripathi, a Sanskrit teacher in a government school. Shrirenu is single, 42, and alone—despite having a best friend in Namit Das, and a friendly companion and mother figure in his bhabhi, Ayesha Raza.

So Shrirenu Tripathi embarks on a journey of finding love at 42 and he starts walking from the colonies of Jamshedpur and lands in the streets of Kolkata, bumping into Mishri Bose, a French teacher, Bengali, 32, played by Fatima Sana Shaikh. How, when and why, is where the film begins with a twist, I wasn’t expecting. As it proceeds it keeps building intrigue while penning down a beautiful new-age love story!

Aap Jaisa Koi Movie Review: Script Analysis

Aap Jaisa Koi starts with Madhavan’s Shrirenu finding love in Fatima’s Madhu. It follows the basic trajectory of love—you fall in love, there’s the honeymoon period, and then arrives the moment of truth—the moment when you realize that no love stories are about opposites attracting each other or opposites fitting in, but love is about opposites trying to make adjustments for each other and squeezing in until they make a room for each other! But here comes the main question amidst this moment of truth – is the person you chose worth fighting for all these adjustments? Worth prioritizing them above your fragile ego? If the answer is yes, then you fight, if the answer is no, you move on!

Aap Jaisa Koi begins with falling in love and ends at surrendering in love, but the story and the main crux is about choosing whether you can fight for love, or more importantly, whether you want to fight for love, while realizing if it is even love in the first place! Too complicated right? No, absolutely not, if you want to sail through love and if you understand the language of love!

Aap Jaisa Koi Movie Review: Star Performance

R Madhavan is magic on screen. Every time he tries to bring a love story, it is so compelling and convincing that you want to believe him and his struggles. Be it Manu from Tanu Weds Manu or now Shrirenu from Aap Jaisa Koi! His character intensifies, and he turns out to be a true-blue patriarch at heart. The patriarch thinks he is modern because he allows his woman to have fun, but obviously in limits. And what’s surprising is that Madhavan loses his charm and innocence the moment he turns into this absolute patriarchal mard as soon as he gets engaged to his woman! Because, obviously, now he owns the woman! It is so real, that you cannot just unsee it! As his character in one of the crucial scenes confessed, “Desh ke 90 pratishat mard aise hi hote hain, unhone yahi dekha hai.”

Fatima Sana Shaikh is attributed as Madhubala by Madhavan in one of the scenes, and I would not call it an overestimated statement! She looks like a dream as Madhu Bose! I do not know why she is still so underutilized in the industry, but that unused charm works volumes for this Dharmatic film. She looks as fierce as Madhu Bose! She has a sense of surrender despite fighting up for her. It almost breaks your heart when she looks into her fiancé’s eyes and tells him, ‘Aap bhi baakiyon jaise hi nikle.’

The entire ensemble works brilliantly and is a strong support for the film. But Ayesha Raza turns a show stealer, bringing the film together with a strong dialogue on patriarchy. She is the lost, forgotten housewife, who describes her life so aptly when she tells her husband – teen time ki dawa aur khana time pe mil jaaye to aapka dhyaan bhi nahi jaayega ki hum nahi hain. While her man asks – Itni nafrat karti ho humse, she honestly affirms – Nafrat nahi karte, bus Pyaar nahi kar paa rahe!