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Love Aaj Kal is a confounding film about confused people. Maybe writer-director Imtiaz Ali was to have the storytelling reflect the emotions of his leads. But the result is unholy mayhem. The title comes from Imitaz’s own 2009 film, which also stars two love stories across two time zones. But the new film isn’t a sequel or a reboot. Imtiaz obtains the structure of the first film to establish the same sentiment – that the rules of engagement of romance can change with the times but the essence of love, that feeling of connection that makes life worth living, will always be the same. 

 Once again, we have a modernized couple, struggling with the complexities of relationships versus ambition. And once again, there is an older, wiser confidante and advisor Raj, who attempts to steer the course of the stormy relationship between Zoe and Veer. The first film isn’t considered an Imtiaz classic like Jab We Met or Rockstar but some things in it were great – like that opening break-up party or the phrase aam aadmi, mango people, also Pritam’s terrific soundtrack and the crackling chemistry among Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone. And of course Neetu Kapoor’s lovely cameo. 

 Love Aaj Kal juiced the magic of an old-world love, in which a boy can spend days gazing at the woman he loves who stands silently in a balcony like Juliet. The first problem with the new film is the time zones - the gap between 1990 and 2020 just isn’t vast enough. Here also, Raghu gazes at Leena who stands in her balcony. Once again, there is parental and societal opposition – their romance shakes up Udaipur. In a nicely done sequence, you see the gossip gain ground. 

 But there is no sense of that desperate longing that Veer and Harleen had in the first film. That sepia-toned love, which gave the film its ache, is wholly craving here. But what really hobbles Love Aaj all is the 2020 story. Zoe’s big dilemma is that she can’t choose between her event-planner career and love. 

 She’s a girl who has mapped her life out till she’s 55 and her emotions for Veer disrupt these plans. But here’s the thing – the film never manages to make this much-discussed career ever seem real. We see Zoe’s fierce ambition – she opens her shirt for a key business meeting so she looks more attractive. 

 There’s also a lame backstory about her passive-aggressive mother who insists that she prioritize career over love. But the conflict is mostly in Zoe’s head. She decides not to take up an attractive job offer and then proceeds to have a meltdown about her decision. Veer doesn’t make demands.

  He’s like a friendly puppy dog ready to roll over for her. In fact, he’s so pliable that his eerie stalking behavior early in their relationship just comes off as bumbling. 

This makes me wonder if this entire two-hour, twenty-one-minute long wrestling between love and career could have just been avoided with a single conversation. It doesn’t help that Zoe’s distress plays out in luxury - these two work out of a cushy co-working place. She parties in expensive nightclubs and wears stylish clothes.

  Her suffering is so superficial and so first-world that it’s tough to sympathize. Imtiaz has written Zoe as a girl who combines a brittle exterior with a fragile interior. She’s complicated and muddled, in places, even unlikable. This is a tough part, both to write and to play, and neither Imtiaz nor Sara Ali Khan can make it land. The camera constructs Zoe in close-ups and low-angles, which only emphasizes Sara’s shrillness. Her struggle to master her expressions shows. 

 Kartik Aaryan playing both Veer and Raghu does slightly better. Though Veer is a bewildering character – he’s a Rumi-quoting enthusiast who is so awkward in the beginning that you wonder if there is a developmental issue – Raghu is better written. 

 There is a good-natured goofiness about him at the start – his attempts to show love through Bollywood movements and his body-hurling breakdancing is fun. Arushi Sharma who plays Leena has a lovely, dignified presence. And Randeep Hooda valiantly tries to hold it all together.

  Like Rishi Kapoor in the first film, Randeep is mostly just describing his own love story. But his skillful acting gives the film much-needed depth. His unexpected story and yearning, is the best part of Love Aaj Kal. Imtiaz is Hindi cinema’s high priest of romance.

  With this film, he tries to dive lower and go darker. He wants to show us the loneliness of pure ambition and the emptiness of hook-up culture. In one scene, a drunk Zoe is left by a boy on an empty street in the middle of the night. That’s a chilling situation for any girl but the film doesn’t want to delve into how terrifying this actually could be.

  Everything is sanitized and pretty. So Zoe tells her boss Kaam hi mera boyfriend hai but you never feel her struggle. Raj is a successful businessman but he never seems too busy – mostly, he’s just lounging around, ready to tell stories when Zoe needs them. In Love Aaj Kal, Imitaz once again tries to make a case for love as redemption. 

 The world might be brimming with ugliness – as Zoe says, koi magic nahin hai yahan. But what will save us, he insists, is uncompromising human connection. In one of the film’s best scenes, Raj weeps at the gap between what he is and what he wanted to be. Love Aaj Kal urges us to seize the moment and the person who can help us bridge this gap I go into every Imtiaz movie waiting to be seduced by this argument and hoping that he will bring us to that sweet spot – you know, dil aur Duniya ke beech. Sadly, Love Aaj Kal misses the mark by a mile. 

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