‘Love Insurance Kompany’ (2026) Movie Review - One of the Worst Films of the Year

In Kaathuvaakula Rendu Kaadhal, Vignesh Shivan asked, "What if one man falls in love with two women?" It's the kind of question that makes you scratch your chin, smile a little, and mischievously mumble, "Hmm, interesting." Shivan, unfortunately, didn't go beyond this one-line tease and ended up giving us an unbearable romantic comedy. In Love Insurance Kompany, Shivan asks, "What if we throw away our smartphones and start connecting with each other offline?" Sadly, the writer-director this time doesn't even pose a question that feels "interesting." Sure, a character in LIK rants that everything nowadays, from shopping to food delivery, mainly happens through mobile phones, but this feels inserted merely to show that Shivan is not oblivious to the benefits of technology. Ultimately, the writer-director aligns himself with the belief that smartphones are detrimental to society—he prefers humans over machines.

The genre of fantasy is mighty difficult to pull off because it severely tests a filmmaker's creativity. It requires filmmakers to immerse viewers in a futuristic world that differs from our surroundings. A filmmaker has to have a strong sense of style, the power to conjure life, and an extraordinary sensibility because fantasy itself is extraordinary. No wonder when fantasies succeed (as they often do under Wes Anderson's wizardry), the result is both transportive and transformative. But when they fail, they feel thoroughly empty—there's nothing worth watching. LIK is that blank, futile, ineffectual fantasy. The word "eyesore" was probably coined so that one day it could help describe this film. For someone who flaunts his aversion to AI, Shivan creates his Chennai of 2040 with what clearly appears to be AI. The plastic exterior shots of a hospital and the room where the climactic fight takes place look so artificial that we are cut off from the story. Even the other scenes aren't immersive because Shivan erects a wall between his characters and his setting and between the audience and the screen. The actors seem to have been green-screened in, and since the images oscillate between being too fake and too pretty, we are never transported into the future that Shivan has imagined.

The only area where Shivan's efforts yield an approving smile is in the details that lend this future some credibility. The words "Fall Detected" appear on phones when they are dropped on the ground. Users of the titular dating app wear a ring that, depending on the way two people hold hands, declares them "connected" or "committed." There is a prison-like place where people are sent for committing cybercrimes like selling dubious products online, and this place has a machine that processes prisoners' phones and ejects a card containing the phone's memory. There are other amusing touches, like sunglasses placed on the shoulders of Vibe Vassey (Pradeep Ranganathan) and a nameplate with the residents' online usernames engraved on it.

The filmmakers have spent energy embellishing props and objects. It's possible, then, that while thinking about the script, they got exhausted. Vassey himself complains that in the early days, people used to break up on the basis of caste, religion, or financial status. Now, they are breaking up because of an app. LIK, too, plays out like those old love stories where the boy and the girl are kept apart through painful contrivances—what never comes into question is that they will eventually end up together. One can forgive a rom-com for being predictable if either the "rom" or "com" part is enjoyable and if there is terrific chemistry between the lead actors. LIK, however, monumentally fails in every respect, in every department. Both Ranganathan and Krithi Shetty behave like plastic dolls—their eyes are blank. The former, at least, attempts to make the audience laugh with weird faces, but Shetty is just glamorous; she might as well have been kept in a glass case. The lovers talk about sex and condoms, but the kiss is only on the forehead. It's as if Shivan wants to look "cool" in front of a young audience by suggesting he has an open mind, but when the moment comes to prove it, he turns "old-school," and his actions feel outdated.

In the name of comedy, poor Yogi Babu is once again made to perform juvenile gestures. He does his best, but the humor is so infantile that we wish Shivan had simply asked AI to write jokes for this material. I also found Shivan's conception of romance so absurd that it borders on the ridiculous. Vassey and Dheema's (Shetty) relationship begins with love at first sight—as soon as his eyes fall on her, he becomes infatuated (she takes her time to see him as a potential partner). Vassey is convinced that his feelings for Dheema are genuine, so much so that he challenges Suriyan (S. J. Suryah) and his app. But based on the evidence LIK offers, Vassey's "love" comes across as the lustful desire of a horny teenage boy. When Dheema tells Vassey that they can do anything, he thinks only about sex. When Dheema invites Vassey to meet her for the first time through the LIK app, their meeting takes place at a dance studio where both Vassey and his friend are captivated by her curvy figure. He never expresses any opinion about her social media content, never asks about her strategies to stay ahead in the influencer game, and never inquires how much time she spends creating posts for her audience. As far as Shivan is concerned, being an influencer is all about doing paid promotions. This is what Dheema is seen doing, and this is the extent of Shivan's imagination, which only underlines that he has never stepped out of his gilded cage to interact with social media creators.

It's hard, then, not to see Shivan as a grumpy old man who never bothers to learn about things that exist outside his field of experience. He's comfortable in his bubble, and from that comfort, he moans that smartphones are harming humans. Like every tool, every machine, every technological advancement, AI too has its advantages and disadvantages. Someone with a nefarious purpose will bring out the worst of AI, and someone with noble intentions will employ it for valuable purposes. The results depend heavily on the user. But Shivan indulges in easy moralizing and pats himself on the back. Instead of observing, questioning, and criticizing impressionable consumers, he chooses to kill the dating company and celebrate the same humans who, throughout the film, swing between Team Vassey and Team Suriyan. As long as the world is filled with exploitable people, it doesn't matter if you defeat Suriyan and his creation—something else will quickly replace them. Shivan's eyes, however, are on the box office, so he targets AI and a cartoon villain rather than diving into the real matter. Brush aside all the intellectual talk and consider LIK on its own terms, and it still falls short. The villain is unmemorable, the performances are flat, and the futuristic world is devoid of wonder. LIK is one of the worst films of the year.