Satyaprem Ki Katha

The film makes an interesting watch for its wonderful performances and its central message. Under all the Gujarati fun and fluff, the drama and twists pave the way for a strong message.

SatyaPrem Ki Katha is too long for a story that's too familiar to begin with. It's not a bad film, but it's often dull and you can pretty much predict every next step.

The partly problematic film that tries hard to be an entertainer even as it preaches righteousness ends up oversimplifying a serious issue and masking it while ending up neither here nor there. The film could have elevated its plot by avoiding the dramatisation, simplification and Bollywoodification of a sensitive topic.

This is a film bursting with colour and movement, with talky, dramatic sections ceding to epic dance sequences involving hundreds of impeccably turned-out performers. The rest of the music, on the whole, is catchy and involving. There is a kind of mechanical satisfaction in seeing each of them triumph or get their just deserts, as appropriate.

Satyaprem ki Katha isn't the kind of film that you would've expected it to be from what you saw in the trailer. Far from a rib-tickling comedy, this film is hard-hitting, poignant and delivers a strong message. The film falters at the screenplay level, which is laborious and gets stuck in a loop of repetitive conflicts.

Satyaprem Ki Katha's rom-com energy belies a sensitive story that is occasionally graceful in its resolve, but ultimately too distracted by the razzle-dazzle of song and dance and male saviour complex to work entirely. Kiara Advani is the reason why Satyaprem Ki Katha's simplified, sugar-coated look into serious issues like consent doesn't hit problematic notes.

As Satyaprem Ki Katha ticks most of the boxes in the checklist, it could very well be the much-needed love story that Bollywood needed at this point. A musical romance with a good-looking lead pair -- Kartik Aaryan and Kiara Advani -- who have earlier also made heads turn with their chemistry in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 - Satyaprem Ki Katha is refreshing, entertaining but never lets go of the sensitivity of the subject at hand.

In the first half, Satyaprem Ki Katha is a bad film in a jokey, frivolous, meandering way. After the intermission, it becomes a different sort of bad film, all tears and trauma and moral instruction. Advani and Aaryan are an uninvolving pair—as always, he gives the impression he loves himself more than anyone else.

The film is set up to give Kartik Aaryan the lion's share of memorable moments, but Kiara Advani is more hard-working than Aaryan – and more efficient. While the movie explores a noble cause behind the troubled marriage with sensitivity, it still demands that the hero take the initiative of releasing his heroine from her travails, reflecting a male saviour complex that undermines the female lead's agency.

After taking time to get used to its world and overcome its dated envelope in the first half, Satyaprem Ki Katha finds its voice as a social drama worth listening to. The film sparks an interesting debate about reel and real-life heroes while probing ideas of izzat and maryada within popular Hindi cinema. One more draft and a bit more lilt would have made this Katha absolutely riveting, but in its present form it delivers a message for boys and girls.

There are very few films that have a lousy first half and a good second half and Satyaprem Ki Katha falls in this rare category. While the film tackles the topic of date rape and consents credibly in the second half, the first half is lousy. The film though lacks consistency in its writing.