If Bollywood were any more exploitative than it already is, it would’ve got the struggling Dibakar Banerjee to direct Loveyapa as a gun-for-hire. But then, it wouldn’t have been the same garbage movie. Banerjee would’ve spotted the inherent toxicity of its protagonists — played by two-time offenders Khushi Kapoor and Junaid Khan — and attempted to unpack the patriarchal systems that made them this way. Had Banerjee directed this movie, Khan would’ve almost certainly become a mascot for toxic masculinity at just two films old. The only difference is that Maharaj, his debut film, had no idea that his character was a terrible person. Loveyapa, on the other hand, appears to at least recognise his ‘flaws’, but expects you to root for him regardless.
Directed by Advait Chandan and co-written by Sneha Desai — both have worked with Aamir Khan before — Loveyapa debuted on JioHotstar recently following a dismal theatrical run. It wouldn’t take a genius to identify why audiences didn’t connect with the movie, but one viewing is enough to make you wonder why it exists in the first place. Devoid of any personality whatsoever, mired in tired tropes, and tonally shrill to the point of being violent, Loveyapa is a particularly unbearable example of older folks trying (and failing spectacularly) to understand the younger generation. If the movie itself has such disdain for its characters, how can it expect the audience to be forgiving of them?
The primary problem with films like Loveyapa is that instead of empathising with the youth, they want to chastise them. An entire scene is dedicated to the protagonist Gucci’s mother giving him a lecture about how smartphones are the root of all evil. It’s like a judge delivering a sermon to Saif Ali Khan’s stabber about the dangers posed by kitchen cutlery. They’re missing the point! Infidelity, as an idea, isn’t restricted to one generation. Don’t we know this already? People have been cheating on their partners since before the concept of monogamy was conceived. But you’d imagine that domestic violence is something that, as a society, we’re consciously trying to abolish.
Gucci doesn’t have a domineering dad in Loveyapa, and yet, he has the mentality of one. At one point in the film, after pounding an adversary to a pulp, he instinctively raises his fist to punch his girlfriend Baani in the face. For those keeping score at home, this is the second time (in a row) that Khan has played a dude who has contemplated beating his partner. In Maharaj, the ‘heroic’ character he played shamed his fiancé for being coerced into having sex with a powerful godman. In Loveyapa, Gucci’s outburst can be blamed on him being a Delhiite. That’s the extent to which the movie attempts to investigate his issues. Needless to say, it doesn’t matter that these characters didn’t actually hit their partners, because, as we all should know by now, there is no difference between a man who hits women and a man who thinks about hitting them.
In Loveyapa, Baani accuses Gucci of being a ‘psychopath, pervert, sex maniac’. She also (correctly) recognises that he was probably running a casting couch scam on the internet by promising women roles in his imaginary short film in exchange for certain favours. “This is sextortion,” Baani tells him in one scene, indicating that Loveyapa at least has an idea of right and wrong. So, why does it behave like Gucci’s bizarre obsession with Baani being ‘pure’ is normal? “I know you aren’t that kind of girl,” he tells her, after another creep makes a DeepFake video of her and releases it online. It doesn’t matter to Gucci that his girlfriend has been made a victim of revenge porn; all he seems to care about is if she’s still a virgin. Baani’s dad, played by Ashutosh Rana, uses deeply unsettling language while discussing their relationship. He equates dating Baani with ‘gaining entry’ in her. Ew.
A smarter movie — a movie with Banerjee hypothetically at the helm — would’ve tried to understand why Gucci is so influenced by patriarchal ideas. But this would only have been possible if it had the intelligence to even discern good behaviour from bad. The only reason he doesn’t force himself on her, he admits in one scene, is because he satiates his urges by watching all sorts of porn. What a bonkers thing to admit! Repeat after me, there is no difference between a rapist and someone who contemplates being one. Baani would do well to stay away from someone like him, if she weren’t such a red flag herself.
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During the course of the movie, it is revealed that she was going on secret dates with her exes after lying to Gucci about her whereabouts. Unlike Gucci, who raises his fist to punch her but doesn’t follow through on his indefensible instincts, Baani actually slaps him across the face in one scene for being obnoxious. Loveyapa seems to be smugly taunting feminists, having taken the decidedly problematic position of a men’s rights activist. Movies like this fail to understand that our problem isn’t with men hitting women or women hitting men, our problem is with physical violence, period. By having Baani hit Gucci, Loveyapa seems to be raising its eyebrow in our direction and asking, “What do you have to say now?” All you can do is heave a sigh of disappointment. A lot of work remains to be done.
Ironically for a movie that wants to project the anxieties of the youth, it has the brain of a dinosaur. Even though Baani is willing to accept Gucci for the flawed person that he is, he’s relieved when her DeepFake is proven to be… well, fake. You wonder if he’d have dumped her had it been real. Typically, in romantic comedies such as this, you want the protagonists to get together because aww. Here, you want them to get together because that would get them off the market. We wouldn’t want these people to be roaming in the wild. In a way, they’re made for each other; they’re Sid and Nancy, Bonny and Clyde, Preeti and Kabir Singh. Loveyapa, however, views them as Jack and Rose. It would be impossible to spend even two minutes with them in real life; watching them on screen for 130 minutes is plain torture.
Post Credits Scene is a column in which we dissect new releases every week, with particular focus on context, craft, and characters. Because there’s always something to fixate about once the dust has settled.
