Love Aaj Kal is, you guessed it, love today versus love yesterday. And, of course I don’t exactly mean yesterday, but yesteryear, as in 2 love stories, both starring Saif Ali Khan. Khan who has also turned producer with this film, and launched Illuminati films, expresses love doubly here. Saif is love-struck, once as old-fashioned Sardar Veer, who having once sighted the girl of his dreams Harleen Kaur, waits in silence just to catch another glimpse of her, and the second time as a modern young man of today Jai, who thinks he has it good with Meera (Padukone) but is willing to find out if there are other fish in the sea.
Yup, it’s back to the fields of Punjab, folks, to see Saif Ali Khan, atop a bicycle wooing the girl in the cycle rickshaw. The new girl who plays Harleen, looks quite the part, demure as girls were then (?), eyes downcast, and gazes averted. For the trendy, and those who want the “in-thing”, you have another helping of Saif mixed with Deepika’s sparkly good looks.
Romance rocks (in) Bollywood. Has rocked for several decades now, if you look at the amount of romantic films made every year. Recently the trend has been changing, and we have been fortunate enough to see non-romance themed films too, but the masses swoon in the name of romance. Boy meets girl. Girl smitten, boy smitten, throw in a few “villains” – and voila ! You have your average 1980s and 90s romance. Also a super-duper hit formula by the way, so let’s not look down our noses at it.
Imtiaz Ali is a director who has been very successful with romantic films. From his first film, “Socha na tha” which starred then newcomer Ayesha Takia and our silver-screen Devdas Abhay Deol, to his 2006 hit “Jab we met” Ali has delivered each time. In this age of Facebook and Twitter, where you receive hazaaron requestes of “friendship” and people can “poke” you , and scrap on your “wall” , and you are free to IM or chat, his films are always served with a twist, and manage to bridge the age old idea of staid love with the zingy youthfulness of modern and “internet-age” romance.
A promising and enthusiastic starcast, a good director and some very catchy music, this film promises to be the Desi film of the Summer. This will be in a theater near you, the 31st of July ! See you there, first day, first show !
P.S. : I’ve been trying to embed a high quality trailer of the film here, but the good quality ones up at youtube are posted by user “erosentertainment” and embedding is disabled by request. This means that any blogger (like moi) cannot embed the trailer while plugging the film. Are the marketing folks retarded ? It’s like – want free publicity – er . . . No, Thanks !
