‘Aap Jaisa Koi’ (2025) Netflix Movie Review - A Shallow, Vapid Romantic Drama

I regret to inform you that Vivek Soni's Aap Jaisa Koi never gives room to that Nazia Hassan and Biddu song from Qurbani: Aap jaisa koi meri zindagi mein aaye/To baat ban jaaye... Haan haan baat ban jaaye. Instead, it opens with a Jatin-Lalit song from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: Koi Mil Gaya, mil hi gaya. This might be the only unpredictable thing Soni does in the film. Anyway, this song is followed by a curse. A teenage girl curses a teenage boy, saying he will never find love or sex in his life. She might have just put a curse on Soni's film. What else could explain the lack of warmth and intimacy? Soni's idea of romance is to infuse the screen with artificial sweeteners. The jokes are too cute, and the facial expressions are even cuter. You feel as if you would be punished for complaining or resisting the charming facade. As far as sex is concerned, it's non-existent. Shrirenu Tripathi (R. Madhavan) installs the titular sex-chat app, but his conversations are almost chaste. Is Soni afraid of offending the "family audience?" There is a serviceable mommy-daddy joke, but it's nearly offensive that the characters are not even allowed to share a kiss. Soni behaves like a prude: He acts like a "good boy" who becomes shy around sexual matters. Why approach this material, then?  

Of course, the script, written by Jehan Handa and Radhika Anand, isn't exactly a winner either. It's very much tailored for someone who made Meenakshi Sundareshwar. Like that 2021 rom-com, Aap Jaisa Koi displays zero interest in the characters and spends all its energy on creating pretty pictures (Debojeet Ray returns as the cinematographer). The images merely serve as a decoration. Soni's picture postcard aesthetic tries to compensate for the crummy drama. Conflicts (and some characters, like Karan Wahi's Namit) are brushed aside as soon as they are brought up. Unlike Meenakshi Sundareshwar, however, the conflicts this time, at least, register. Then again, that's not much of a compliment, considering the shallow purpose behind generating friction. Soni wants to preach to the audience. What's worse is that he doesn't just want to be socially and morally conscious; he also wants to trigger emotions through cheap shortcuts. So you get a character like Bhanu (Manish Chaudhary), who rage-baits you with every line. He gets what's coming in an equally bait-y scene, in which his wife, Kusum (Ayesha Raza), shows him the mirror and openly admits she's found new love. How does this incident affect Bhanu? Does he immediately move on? Does he miss his wife or regret losing her? Aap Jaisa Koi doesn't stay with him for these answers. The character serves his purpose and then is casually discarded. 

This is the kind of film that doesn't bother answering how Madhu Bose (Fatima Sana Shaikh) managed to make a restaurant serve tea when all they serve is coffee? Soni simply wants to distract you with shiny, attractive packaging. He knows the box is empty. I was especially turned off by his eagerness to please. He doesn't trust us to grasp simple things, like the similarities between Bhanu, Shrirenu, and Namit. Three men, three different spectrums of male toxicity. Bhanu wants women to handle kitchen duties. Shrirenu thinks it's okay for men to use sex-chat apps, but women should stay away from them. And Namit wants his girlfriend/wife to be a virgin (at least, initially). Out of the three men, only Shrirenu changes explicitly. Madhu mentions that she and Namit have become good friends, but we don't really believe that Namit has given up on his ex, because in his last scene, he still appears toxic. I couldn't help but wonder if Soni thinks that change is impossible for "studs" like Bhanu and Namit, though a "good boy" like Shrirenu (someone who's got that awkward-uncle energy and a bit of a loser vibe) is capable of becoming progressive. Even if that's true, Soni isn't very convincing. The transformation happens abruptly. It becomes evident that Shrirenu is changing his values because that's the demand of the script. Such deep, drastic psychological modifications don't happen overnight. What this means is that the subject Soni deals with is quite heavy, and it doesn't deserve a film as superficial as this. 

Aap Jaisa Koi, through a song, establishes how strong Madhu is. It also tells us that she can't stand men with outdated, orthodox beliefs. Yet, while Namit is rejected almost instantly, Shrirenu continues to be alluring even when he reveals his backward thinking. This again establishes that the characters' behavior is strictly dictated by the script. Soni merely wants to prove a point. What he proves turns out to be vapid. His notions seem as facile as his aesthetics. Even the "quirkiness" is artificial. There is nothing even remotely funny in the conception of a union between a Sanskrit teacher and a French professor. The idea sounds odd on paper, and what you see on the screen feels awkward and childish. Soni doesn't know what kind of humor he wants from the Sanskrit-French pairing. It might be Sana Shaikh or that song where characters sing about Madhu's personality that led me to Metro... In Dino, and to a chilling thought that sent a chill down my spine. I couldn't help but think that in the hands of a clumsy filmmaker, what a misfire the Anurag Basu musical could have been. Metro... In Dino could have ended up like Aap Jaisa Koi. Crisis averted, I guess. So, who is the target audience of Soni's film? Or who could gain any benefit from it? The answer: Karan Johar. Next time, if someone ends up blaming him for promoting nepotism, he could point his fingers towards Aap Jaisa Koi. But if Dharma Productions really cares about people's opinions, then people should stop the nepotism debate and start criticizing the quality of Dharma films. Become a true cinéphile; demand better movies. 

Final Score- [2.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times