Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
The much talked about Mohit Suri film ‘Saiyaara’ has made its way to OTT and like many who missed it in theatres, I figured it was time to stream it.
Sabse pehele toh, what in the ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ opening was that?! Remember Bipasha Basu’s Radhika, abandoned at the altar by jerk Raj Sharma (Ranbir Kapoor)? ‘Saiyaara’ takes it up a notch, its lead Vaani Batra (Aneet Padda) is left waiting at the registrar on her wedding day while her boyfriend bails to San Francisco, sending only his parents as messengers. He is flying off to a new job and a wealthier girlfriend. Talk about being a rotten shit-bag. All this drama in the first five minutes.
Cut to six months later, Vaani walks into a media office for what looks like her first-ever job interview, only to be offered an internship instead. So, wait, you’re telling me this young Mumbai girl is fresh out of college with a master’s in journalism, and she was already getting married? Why sister?! And mind you, we still haven’t even hit the 10-minute mark. To actor Aneet Padda’s credit, she gets the ‘heartbroken, jilted lover’ persona perfectly.
Enter hero Krish Kapoor (Ahaan Panday), who storms into the same office, slams a journalist’s head against a table, and screams about reporters favouring ‘nepo’ kids over genuine talent. Which, I’m guessing, is the creators’ attempt at meta humour, because Ahaan Panday is Chunky Panday’s nephew. A nepo kid. But if Krish Kapoor is such an ordinary kid, why isn’t he slapped with charges for assaulting a journalist, while there’s plenty of visual proof of the act? Bollywood delulu logic.
Anyway… ‘Saiyaara’ is a bit like ‘Aashiqui 2′ meets Notebook’, where a superstar singer in the making falls in love with a girl battling serious memory issues. The lead pair grow close after Krish reads her diary without permission (for which she really should’ve smacked him, but doesn’t), and then hires her to write lyrics. While Krish works hard to achieve fame as a singer, Vaani’s memory deteriorates, and the two stumble through a formulaic script that isn’t enjoyable or believable.
For instance, at the fifteenth minute of ‘Saiyaara’, Krish Kapoor fights with all his band members, tells them to go to high hell right before a gig. So, he headlines the outdoor gig alone, and all the shoppers drop everything and start cheering him on, an unknown singer still, as if Michael Jackson himself has woken up from his grave to go busking at a Mumbai mall. Any indie musician working in the Indian music scene will scratch their eyes out at the absurdity of the spectacle. Forget that, remember Sonu Nigam singing on the streets of Mumbai disguised as an old man, and very few stopped to listen? Yeah, that’s how reality works.
Fine, by the very first half hour of ‘Saiyaara’ we must reconcile to the fact that this is a brainless, over-the-top Bollywood love story, where shy, forgetful, Vaani Batra falls for ‘bad boy’ singer Krish Kapoor… because who knows why. Although of course, she ‘fixes’ him with her kind presence and lyrics (yeah, it doesn’t really seem like it though, he continues to have anger issues until the very end of the film). The couple’s romance gets complicated because Vaani’s jerk ex re-surfaces from America and starts messing with her head.
At least the self-centered Krish’s obsessive love for Vaani in ‘Saiyaara’ makes sense: she is a girl, and a pretty one at that. Everything else is a bonus for him, especially how she keeps forgetting things, so it’s easier for her to tolerate his obnoxious, dominant, loud, annoying personality. An alcoholic absent father is thrown in the mix to justify his behavior. Of course.
‘Saiyaara’ is largely insufferable, filled with screams, fights, twists, and yeah, some nice songs. But you can just go stream the music on YouTube without having to watch this whole film, which is over-bloated at its 2 hour 30 minute runtime. This movie’s ‘watchable factor’ is in the same league as Netflix romances like ‘Nadaaniyan’ or ‘My Oxford Year’. But hey, if that’s your jam, you do you.
I remember Mohit Suri’s 2009 horror movie Raaz 2 being more entertaining than ‘Saiyaara’ (saw it in a theater back then).
Rating: 1.5 stars on 5. Watch something else on Netflix.
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