Love Aaj Kal: Idealist then, Juvenile today

Love Aaj versus Love Kal’ is the kind of discussion you might enter if you had a couple of hours to kill, and nothing else to discuss. This may appeal to 50+ ‘generation’ with nostalgic reference to the past and perhaps as a way of coming to terms with the ‘fast’ present. In pitting the values of the past against the present one takes on very large issues and yet the results could be vague and inconclusive thus necessitating a nuanced treatment of the subject. Imtiaz Ali’s treatment of Love Aaj Kal is more of the glossy Sunday feature section kind, where ideas are rarely balanced and have conditioned opinions, unsubstantiated comments and forced conclusions.

Jai Vardhan Singh (Saif Ali Khan) has met Meera Pandit (Deepika Padukone) in London. They have had a great time for a couple of years without making any old-fashioned commitments. Then it’s time for Meera to go to India to pursue her career as a restoration artist. Jai’s career dreams can only be fulfilled in San Francisco. And since they are ‘modern’ couple they decide to part ways instead of working out a long distance relationship. So they throw a ‘break-up’ party and go separate ways. Here enters a restaurant owner Sardar (Rishi Kapoor) who is somehow convinced that Jai is in love with Meera and is determined to help him. But Jai is an unwilling disciple and takes his own sweet time to come to a decision. In the mean time he does exactly what they had decided not to do – keep a long distance relationship. And in between Jai’s long and warbled monologues Sardar ji manages to tell his love story – a story of stolen glances, cycle and rickshaw encounters, and rebellion against families – story of a time when professing love meant proposing marriage as it is popularly believed.

The title suggests both a comment on the state of love in the present day and a comparison with how it was in the good old times. If the two love stories were just that – individual stories from different times and cultural backgrounds they would have been kind of cute. There are indeed many good moments in both the story tracks. The problem is that the stories are given representational overtones and the matter worsened by sweeping, generalized observations and statements. It may be acceptable for a character in the film to say that the younger generation is afraid of commitments or that they use their heads not their hearts but can a film with any seriousness draw those conclusions?

The treatment of Raj-Meera relationship is light to the point of being flippant. Their scenes together give a comic quality to the first half of their story. As Jai’s story unfolds one can see certain foolishness in him. And when after much ado he admits to being in love, the error of his ways that was always clear to the audience is finally established for him. Had the treatment of the film remained comic this could have passed, but the film becomes dramatic and finally judgmental on the Bollywood lines that true love happens only once and must be honoured. A man and a woman wanting to pursue their dream careers and not wanting to pursue a trans-continental relationship, their breaking off in an agreeable manner is made to look silly, frivolous, even tragic.

On the other hand, the story of Sardar and Harleen Kaur is treated with uncritical reverence. This story has several beautiful moments but is shown with an authorial tint of romance and idealism – it’s like watching a museum piece, you admire it because it’s really old. The sardar’s story is forcefully coupled with the main story. It appears in conveniently placed conversations between Saif and Rishi Kapoor. Something else that bothered me is the role of the female protagonist Meera. Despite the effort to make her look and behave like a modern, emancipated woman, you don’t get to know what she is thinking. She is never a victim in that none of the decisions are forced on her, and she enjoys the life she has chosen. But on every critical occasion it’s Raj blabbering away while she looks on silently. What is going on in her head? Does she agree with him? Is she as confused as he is? Is she hurt, or is she simply laughing at him? And a non-actor like Deepika doesn’t help the problem either.

Imitiaz Ali continues to show certain talent with dialogues, ‘creating moments’ and extracting natural performances from his cast members. Saif Ali Khan has done very well in playing the sardar. He has worked hard to get the body language right, even if he is less impressive as Raj. The songs in the film are very good although they are not really essential to the narrative of film. The camera and production design make the film look rich and the pace and edit of the film tells you that the director is firmly in control.

Love Aaj Kal is a superior work to Ali’s earlier film, Jab We Met, where the protagonists were near loony; here they are only juvenile.