Cambridge Canter:
This film has the silliest meet cute imaginable. The guy is standing outside the ladies’ toilet, stopping women from going in… why? The girl manages to get past him, and then he starts following her. Their flights from Heathrow have been cancelled, so she just takes off on a whim to Cambridge, and he attaches himself to her, all the while claiming that he is not a stalker.
Bobby Aur Rishi Ki Love Story, directed by Kunal Kohli, tries to get elements of Before Sunrise (a cult 1995 film, so almost sacrilegious to copy it), and his own Hum Tum (which was borrowed from When Harry Met Sally). Bobby (Kaveri Kapur) keeps trying to push Rishi (Vardaan Puri) away, but also acts flirty. They end up spending a “magical” (his word) day together, but at the time of parting, she does not want to take the connection further, while he is disappointed by her attitude.
The story is narrated in flashback to a therapist (Lillete Dubey), because the two are having trouble in their relationship—which seeing as how immature and downright silly they came across, they were not prepared for in any case.
They run into each other again, and the spark is reignited, but Bobby’s psychobabble excuse for keeping him at arm’s length is that her parents have an unhappy marriage. She has had a couple of nasty break-ups too, and is afraid of commitment. When she is ready for it, he is unavailable.
Unlike other popular romcoms, like, say, Jab We Met, the two characters are ditzy and despite drizzles of pseudo-profound lines, and a ponderous voiceover by Rishi, they just are just never likeable enough to care about. The script does not get close enough to figure out what they are all about.
People who are constantly indecisive in real life are annoying, so watching Bobby do the coquettish pull-push dance around Rishi, who is at least sincere, makes her come across as flaky instead of cute. Kaveri’s little girl voice that works when she is portrayed as a student grates when she is seen as a grown up.
If the lead pair is unable to pull its weight, a film is helped along by its supporting cast—this one, with the exception of Lillete Dubey, has a bunch of obvious amateurs, who cannot add any heft. So, even though there is some amount of humour in the interactions between Bobby and Rishi, they exist in an emotional void, so the weepy-sounding Punjabi songs are ineffective too.
The styling of the two actors is youthful and trendy, but Kohli’s attempt to bottle the essence of Gen Z remains superficial.
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
