Loveyapa , Charming  Engaging Cuddlesome

Loveyapa , Charming  Engaging Cuddlesome

Rating: ****

 Loveayapa…Is So Much Phone & Games

Have you seen the 2022 Tamil  hit Love Today? Do yourself  a favour: don’t!  There  is  smart wickedly funnt  remake  Loveyapa now, which does to  Love Today what Mehboob Khan’s Mother India  did  to Aurat.

   Let me explain. While the two  films are  sourced to the same plot , one soars  far  ahead of the other.

Advait Chandan’s  Loveyapa  simply….soars!  It is breezy  and ebullient, and  yet, mind it, not  all fun and games. There is  a  very serious message  underlining the festivities, the  mauj-masti and  the endless bacchanalia.  But the grim never overtakes  the grin.  What we get is  a chucklefest where the  funny smart lines flow like  a particularly sassy chat group on  WhatsApp which  brings it on  in unstoppered  merriment.

  So bring it on! The war  of words  between Bani and Gucci(Gaurav) , buoyed  by  a  screenplay that knows the  young today and their obsession with the phone, is a hoot.

  Do the kids actually live so much of their  loves on the phone that they have forgotten what real life smells  like? This topic comes up in  fullblown glory in Loveyapa  when Bani’s wily father(Ashutosh Rana, dependably sturdy) agrees to their  alliance, provided they swap phones for one day.

 That’s it! All hell breaks lose and God forbid any couple from agreeing to such a catastrophic trust-check  plan before marriage. As the soon-to-be-wedded ostensibly for-keeps couple dives deeper and deeper into one another’s phone,unsavoury sordid  details emerge from the darkest recesses  of the  instrument to confront the lovers.

 Understandably, this is a very loud film: loud and insistent. As Bani and Gucci,  Khushi Kapoor and Junaid  Khan go at each  other’s throats with hammers and  tongs. Their acerbic interface is laced with pithy prickly comments on how today’s  young look at relationships .

 At one  point,when  Bani challenges  Gucci about the  adult content on  his phone, he retorts, “It is because I  access  such content that I come across decently to  you.”

 There is  a parallel  track about Gucci’s sister’s wedding to an affable dentist(Kiku Sharda, bedazzling in his karmic  timing) who has his own secrets to hide on his phone. Kiku Sharda’s confessional will have you in tears, which is a  rarity in this rocksolid  smile binge.Written by  Sneha  Desai and Pradeep Ranganathan, Loveyapa is  a knock on  the knuckle , a wakeup call for a generation manically  attacked  to the phone.

   More than anything else, this  a film that refuses to swipe left no matter what the provocation .Advait Chandan often nudges  phone jargon a into the plot without taking it too seriously.Chandan preserves  a playful bantering mood without eroding the  seriousness  of  intent. It’s like being in a party where the guests refuse to  leave  even when the music stops.