It’s the season of love and romance and what better way to welcome the week leading up to Valentine’s Day than with a typical urban love story, replete with music, dance, emotions and the necessary shenanigans. Directed by Advait Chandan, Loveyapa, which holds up a mirror to the nature of love and loyalty in modern relationships, also provides an entertaining mix of characters, situations and events that is sure to strike a chord with Gen Z.

Starring Khushi Kapoor and Junaid Khan as the pair of young lovers whose fortunes we follow during the course of the film, it narrates the crazy consequences that follow after Baani’s (Khushi) strict and conservative father (Ashutosh Rana) meets her boyfriend Gaurav (Junaid) and instructs the couple to exchange their smartphones for a day as a test of their integrity and of their mutual trust. Needless to say, this uncovers a series of uncomfortable secrets that each had shielded from the other, and starts off a chain of heated arguments between the two, who were already in a serious, committed relationship with each other based on friendship, transparency and trust.

The idea of trust being more important than love in any romantic relationship comes across as the main theme of Loveyapa. The film also explores equally pertinent subjects like the unhealthy obsession with mobile phones and the hazards it poses to our real lives and relationships. It lays bare the dangerous implications of what parades as harmless fun on online social platforms, by highlighting the harassment and trauma it causes to users, particularly young girls. Fake lives attracting millions of admirers and the avoidable pressures and temptations of a life completely wrapped around social media are also discussed in the film.

Featuring Gaurav’s sister Kiran and her fiancé (Kuki Sharda), Loveyapa’s sub-plot throws up some interesting comparisons between the two very different pairs of relationships, besides focusing on another important issue raised by the film: body shaming. What makes this strand of the story stand out is Sharda’s effortless performance, holding the audience’s attention and curiosity till the end. While the chemistry between this couple is exactly what is expected among Indian couples whose match has been ‘arranged’ by their families, the onscreen chemistry between Khushi and Junaid comes across as more dynamic, lively and adorable. Junaid Khan, who displays an excellent flair for comedy, also impresses as a jealous, possessive and helpless lover in the throes of a heartbreak.
Khushi Kapoor comes across as the typical North Indian youngster, eager for romance, fun and adventure but held back by parental restrictions. Her interactions with her father are realistic and rooted, lending her character a credibility that goes beyond the scope of her role as a romantic heroine. Ashutosh Rana, as usual, delivers a superb performance that perfectly balances his depiction of a father with strong, traditional values but one who is aware of the complexities of modern relationships and is intelligent enough to know how to get his daughter’s boyfriend to prove his worth to them.

However, his character is not free from inconsistencies, while that of Baani and Gaurav also suffer from inconsistencies in their chemistry, marking out one of the major flaws of this romantic comedy. While Loveyapa’s story is contemporary, relatable and utterly relevant in the present era of multiple romantic relationships, what is most disturbing about it is that the film appears to be an almost frame-by-frame copy of the 2022 Tamil hit Love Today.
An official announcement of Loveyapa being a remake of the earlier film does not in any way justify the fact that there’s no attempt to be inventive, and nearly the entire flow of its events is a copy-paste job, including significant dialogues and character reactions. Though the film’s cool, stylish background score and music, along with its attractive colour palette, does win over viewers’ hearts to an extent, what saves the day for Loveyapa are its gentle words of parental wisdom that drive home the importance of presenting a film like this for the current generation of audiences.