There's no kind way to say this, but Saiyaara is a travesty. It's an abomination that the Hindi film industry, the marketing machinery have been ruthlessly determined to push this film forth as the ultimate Gen Z romance when it couldn't be more tiringly dated. Or is it a case of the studio inflating opening figures, revving up a fake anticipation to drive the numbers? Either way, it seems to have worked. It’s been a while since I felt this buzz of a crowd at the theatre for a Hindi film. So, it’s a pity what the director, Mohit Suri, serves is a mere milling out of the standard wounded romance. Saiyaara recycles every trope in a love story, dressing it up with Suri’s typical ballads to accentuate the bends of a seemingly doomed relationship. Both the leads are defined by grief and trauma. There's heartbreak, manipulation and cruel hijinks of destiny, aiming to give beats to this wretchedly overstretched saga. A lot of tears are shed but little in this film scorches the screen or summons a grand tide of passionate, bruised emotion. The actors, Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, do smoulder in snatches. Nevertheless, the wavering characterisation in the screenplay takes off much of their shine.
Saiyaara opens with a betrayal. Vaani (Aneet Padda) is dumped by her fiancé on the wedding day. It takes her months to walk back into functional working life. She lands a reporter’s job when she crosses paths with Krish (Ahaan Panday), a brash, seething loner itching for the big break as a composer. On Vaani’s asking him about his name, he demonstrates. He beats up a journalist for omitting his name in a piece and specially mentioning only those with influential connections. It’s supposed to be a cheeky self-aware nepo joke, given Panday’s own roots. But any chance of humour in this film, like any Suri creation, is ill-fated. Of course, Vaani is magnetized by his darkly imposing personality, though she expresses herself much later. Rather, he’s the one who spots her gifts. He notices the verses filled in her diary she carries everywhere.
Suri and the writers, Sankalp Sadanah and Rohan Shankar, hinge on art borne of special memories, moments of joy. In one scene, Vaani rails on the importance of creating those moments that fuel art. Padda gives it her all and she really holds it together, but the monologue, for all its declarations, is much too banal and littered with obviousness. We are in 2025; do we really need to be lectured on art and intimacy like it’s some ground-breaking revelation? Saiyaara fusses a lot about holding onto the everyday moments of exultation that props up relationships.
At one point, Vaani passionately exhorts Krish to let her help him. Once again, the woman takes the onus of reforming the man. Vaani whips the coarseness and temper issues out of Krish. He wants money and fame, she promises she’ll make him inch closer to those. Suri adds facile touches that Krish too is the reason Vaani gets back her creative instincts. The lovers become a solid team. Astoundingly, Vaani doesn’t lose her job despite her seeming absence at work, while she just takes off and spends days jamming with her boyfriend. I don’t know where this utopian media organisation exists or how I too can avail the spectacular allowances it lends Vaani over a collaboration with Krish. Well, too many questions can’t be asked in a Mohit Suri film. Just when the lovers have figured it out, Suri expectedly hurls in a twist at midway mark. Saiyaara becomes more overtly about memories, especially how their precariousness throws relationships askew.
It's also wildly implausible how Krish skyrockets to popularity once Vaani comes in his life. He's a prodigy who can instantly set to tune the scribbles in her diary. Cynicism must be set aside. Suri demands submission to the gale force of love that sweeps his characters. At varying points, the lovers are nudged by their friends and family to abandon each other. Sacrifice and caution are flung about. Krish has all the signs of a red flag, he’s not the kind to settle for marriage, Vaani’s mother tells her. Later, Krish’s friends insist he leave Vaani. She has her family who can look after her. But the couple keep the faith, pulling away only for the other’s good.
How does conviction in love weather absolute, enveloping incomprehension? When one can no longer recognise the other, how does the relationship stay the course? The trouble is Suri is only mildly interested in plumbing the ache swirling beneath these underlined questions. The decibel level is ceremoniously cranked up every now and then by Saiyaara’s composers, including Tanishk Bagchi, Faheem Abdullah and Arslan Nizami. Anyway most of the songs routinely, dimly pass by, save for the rousing title track. A glass-faced Padda's lip gloss, that stays miraculously intact through the worst crises, makes a bigger impression than the few showier moments Suri tosses her. Her hair, too, is always wind-swept. Even as she tries to scale up her pitch, her daintiness offsets it. It's not just her but a larger phenomenon of Hindi cinema having not a clue in positioning, presenting women. The same was the case for last week's Rajkummar Rao-led Maalik, and the fate of Manushi Chillar in it.
Panday puts on a semi-permanently brooding face. He fares better in the anguished silences. But he also seems to believe over-exerting himself in histrionics is real acting, and it gets exhausting to watch him paddle through those delusions. When he's first introduced, his rugged physicality pops off the screen. Gradually, however, the film shears off Krish's aggression. He grows to bloom, finds laughter again and rekindles ties with his alcoholic father because Vaani's purpose seems to be that. Later, but sparingly, Suri brings back Krish's roughness. To watch characters transform is one of narrative cinema's familiar pleasures, but it's quite another thing when a film takes such uneven, incredulous turns as Saiyaara. Suri ignores jarring shifts in characterisation and gets so devoted to building up his regular mournful dramatic tone it sinks the film. Is it a tall ask for a mainstream romance to blaze with sensuousness and searing provocation? Saiyaara is too trapped in servicing the genre’s templates to have a voice of its own. So, when Krish’s voice does reach millions, it’s ironically forgettable.
