A mainstream remake of a non-Hindi-language movie is often a license to hijack, not adapt. If the original depends more on the treatment and cultural rhythm of an old formula, the imposter has nowhere to hide. Girish A.D.’s Malayalam romcom Premalu was about the scrambled identity of love and ambition for middle-class strivers who enter the adult world; it isn’t perfect (especially a copout airport climax), but the humorous ‘youngness’ of the film sells the point. But Apoorv Singh Karki’s Prem Keetanu is flattened by its Bollywood habits. It is tonally greedy, and the gentrified story is demarcated into genres: it starts out as a TVF-style campus-slacker comedy, morphs into a loud love triangle, collapses into echoes of an obsession tale, briefly flirts with the idea of a coming-of-age drama, and ends as a lightweight romcom. It has the grammar of a music-video montage, where every genre behaves like an entitled lover fending off one another to woo the reluctant viewer.
Most of all, Prem Keetanu unfolds more like a platform than a movie. As an all-in-one showcase for lead actor Vir Pahariya; as third-wheel glory for Aparshakti Khurana; as a striking debut for Aafiya Syed; as an album where songs soften the corporate mix of tenors; as a vehicle for Hostel Daze comedian Nikhil Vijay to rescue scenes; and as an excuse to use Rakesh Bedi’s post-Dhurandhar fame. The storytelling keeps shifting shape to fit these bits in; the remaking is just a medium. Ironically, the checklist movie’s damsel-in-stress Suhani is defined by a checklist of life-goals and dream-partner traits; it’s why she can’t ‘choose’ between the annoying man-child who sees her help as evidence of love and the sorted boss who sees himself as the romantic provider. Ideally, she would choose herself, but what is a Happily Never After without a wise dad who mansplains the meaning of companionship?
You can tell where the film compromises to assuage egos and float templates. Khurana’s Gurgaon-core character, Jeet, is staged as an arrogant jerk who flaunts his career, belittles the middle-class rival, and weaponises his mentorship to woo Suhani. But it doesn’t commit to his personality: Jeet is neither here nor there, a ‘90s NRI villain in one scene and a goofy Delhi Romeo in the next. Similarly, Pahariya plays Vishal as if mediocrity and beta-masculinity are medical conditions; it’s often the case with conventional heroes who play ‘normal’ guys. Vishal’s moods don’t change according to situations; his entire personality changes. He’s a drunken-heartbreak hero in one song, a dreamy lover in the next, a tragic failure in the next, an underdog competitor in the next, a self-made star in the next. While it’s an interesting portrait of messy heroism, there is no connective tissue between the different…characters of Vishal. Every emotion feels detached from the next.
There’s also the small matter that the love Vishal has for Suhani is more theoretical. He falls for her because the story demands it, and reunites them through tropey scenarios: someone’s fancy wedding, a road-trip, another road-trip, a birthday party, a working-class job so that we can admire how love fuels his self-worth. It doesn’t help that Suhani is seen as an object of affection caught between two male rivals — not as a flesh-and-blood young woman with her own heart and mind. She is unwittingly written as the sort of person who’s leading them on and friendzoning them as per her convenience. You’d imagine it’s a ruse to unleash her agency in the climax and shame the audience for judging her through a patriarchal lens. But surprise surprise: she is gaslighted by the lens, held hostage emotionally, and learns the art of surrendering (disguised as romcom-spontaneity). There is no reason for her to wilt, given how the film builds her up as someone who humanises selfishness and stays amused with the ‘contest’. It’s a flaw inherited from the original, but the chasm is wider in the Hindi film because of how it curates her complexity without understanding it.
There’s a rejection scene towards the end that plays out exactly like the opening of another Hindi release this week, Pooja Meri Jaan. The man lashes out and becomes toxic mid-rejection, painting himself as the victim and the woman as the oppressor. But Pooja Meri Jaan has the wherewithal to base the whole story on the lopsided gender dynamics of the moment: on the delusions of men who think they are owed love in return for friendship, on how society is ever-ready to demonise the woman for the psychological failures of a man. Prem Keetanu doesn’t see the problem though, instead letting her ‘see sense’ and realise that maybe she was wrong all along; maybe his suffering and self-destructive spiral can win her over. Her transformation looks driven by sympathy. Despite the lightweight stretches preceding this scene, it just doesn’t sit right, mainly because the guy behaves like a stalker masquerading as an introvert throughout the film. He’s a guy who cries a lot, sure, but a wet red flag is still a red flag. It’s one of many sour notes in an artificially flavoured story.
At one point in a post-interval song, the screening had a technical glitch and lost all sound. This left us with awkward visuals of the lead couple dancing without music: limbs swaying, faces quivering, outfits matching, lips moving, as if they’re parodying the very idea of romance. Ironically, it’s the only time the film felt truly alive. Perhaps it’s a neat gimmick, I hoped, to signify the silence and vanity of one-sided love. But then the screening paused and replayed the same five minutes with sound: glitch resolved. I can’t think of a better metaphor for a remake that refuses to read the room.