LoveYatri
Cast: Aayush Sharma, Warina Hussain, Ram Kapoor and Ronit Roy
Director: Abhiraj Minawala
LoveYatri is a chance not utilised. It could have been a good launching pad for two newcomers. From upbeat songs to picturesque locations to a strong marketing support, it has got everything, but all this ends up in a convoluted screenplay that never rises above the average.
In a fairly predictable film, Sushrut aka Susu (Aayush Sharma), a ‘garba’ teacher in Vadodara, falls for an NRI Gujarati Michelle aka Manisha (Warina Hussain). She is in India to understand the hype around ‘Navratris’ (nine days of celebration and festivities).
Susu is not compatible with Michelle in worldly terms. He is juvenile, impractical and carefree, while Michelle is sophisticated and well educated. She is a research scholar in London to be precise. However, nothing holds Susu back from expressing his love for Michelle.
As it happens in Bollywood rom-coms, they realise that they want to spend their lives together but they won’t have the approval of their respective families.
There are things that LoveYatri would like you to believe from the very beginning: You need to consider it as a story of lovers against all odds. It’s a different matter if they never actually look confronting serious hurdles. Susu, who for some reasons keeps tossing his cheesy chat-up lines, and his uncle-cum-relationship counselor Ram Kapoor, believe that ‘Garba’ is a solution to every problem in life. Good for them and us, at least we get to perform ‘Garba’, provided that’s an excuse to not watch Salman Khan’s gift to his brother-in-law.
Of all the bizarre scenes in director Abhiraj Minawala’s LoveYatri, nothing comes closer to beating the sequence in which Ram Kapoor tells Aayush how he would feel when he would meet the love of his life.
Consider these lines: “Jab pehli baar usse mulakat hogi saari duniya sookhi hogi tere upar halki halki baarish hogi, Baaki sab black and white dikhenge lekin wo colorful dikhegi."
Translating this will bring back all the bad memories, so allow me to skip.
While 10 minutes is a relatively small amount of time to develop any kind of connection to these characters, it is clearly the perfect amount of time to understand how next two hours of your life are going to be.
Even then we’re supposed to care about Susu and Michelle’s love story, even after countless ‘dandiya’, ‘khakhra’ and ‘fafda’ jokes, such is life and such is the audacity of Minawala’s film.
Aayush appears under-prepared for a role that requires enormous energy and understanding of the milieu. He is good in the opening dance sequence but that’s more or less about it. Warina Hussain, on the other hand, is honest, likeable and has a pleasing presence.
LoveYatri’s annoying clichés make it a really tedious watch.
Rating: 1/5
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