‘Loveyapa’ (2025) Movie Review - A Poor Remake of a Poor Film

Pradeep Ranganathan's Love Today made one feel that it was created by a man who had never interacted with a woman. Its lead female character, Nikitha, was the product of a Madonna–whore complex. Ranganathan overstuffed his film with plenty of issues and then rendered them superficial. But the worst thing about Love Today was its treatment. The comedy didn't jell with the seriousness of the subject. One moment, we were asked to consider the ugly implications of deepfake software, and then a few minutes later, the movie blithely took care of the problem as if it were putting a bandage over a broken skull. Yogi Babu was hired again for cheap humor, though Love Today also didn't stop itself from using him for cheap sentiments. And who can forget that stupid pee joke? The pee joke has thankfully been removed from Advait Chandan's Loveyapa, but this rom-com is still nauseatingly terrible. Then again, it's futile to expect intelligence from Bollywood. If you had to represent this industry with an animal, you would probably pick sheep (almost everybody is busy following a South Indian hit). Bollywood doesn't see remakes as an opportunity to fix or improve certain things. In fact, a Bollywood remake either slavishly follows the source material or the tweaks it carries end up making the adaptation worse than the original. You don't have to go far back in time to dig up examples. Just consider Arati Kadav's Mrs. It has an idiot symbolism involving a balloon that underlines how the protagonist is trapped within the walls of the patriarchy.

Such inanity can also be observed in Loveyapa when Chandan tries to make some points more explicit. When Baani (Khushi Kapoor) informs her father, Atul Kumar Sharma (Ashutosh Rana), that she bought a new phone from the mall because her old phone has a broken display, he tells her that instead of replacing it, she should repair the screen. This is precisely what Baani and Gaurav (Junaid Khan) do in the film: Instead of breaking up and finding another partner, they repair their relationship. Chandan handles this scene like a lecture, which is why he doesn't show us if Baani ever replaced the old phone's screen. If she did, then what happened to it? Is it lying somewhere in the house, or is a family member using it? Through Atul, Loveyapa also delivers a moral lesson to the audience: Learn to repair, not replace, if your relationship has become rocky. I used to think we are a progressive society because we have the freedom to start and end any relationship. But this repair-replace morality is simply conservative. Is your partner a pervert? Does he hit you? Do you no longer feel that spark with her/him? Repair karna sikho beta, replace nahi. What a load of rubbish!

Movies like Love Today/Loveyapa have characters who only look modern from the outside (thanks to smartphones and dressing styles). Gaurav makes a lot of noise regarding Baani's virginity - he even says he doesn't mind if she has had sex with another guy. Yet, Loveyapa (and Love Today) seem to have a problem with a girl who is sexually active. Baani/Nikitha ultimately remain pure virgins and only kiss the boy the movie wants them to be with. Gaurav talks to other women and asks them to send their pictures for a short film. He does this while being in a relationship with Baani. Why? Love Today at least offered a (sad) explanation, but in Loveyapa, the mother-son conversation solely deals with Baani. Grusha Kapoor's character explains that smartphones have given many choices to Baani, but this statement holds true for Gaurav, too, right? In Love Today, the mother criticizes her son, which is something that doesn't happen in this film. And anyway, what's the point of this one-sided explanation when the girl has to be eventually shown as emotionally and sexually committed to just one person? It's all nothing but lip service - an attempt to score brownie points.

How long has Gaurav known Baani (and vice versa)? Nothing about them indicates that they must have known each other for a long time. Yet, Loveyapa says otherwise. In that case, the discussion around their respective exes should have occurred already. And don't these "modern girls" know that boys watch porn online? Why is Baani so shocked to see her pictures in the phone's vault? What did she think Gaurav was doing? Is she so naive that she actually believed him when he said he would delete them after, um, satisfying his needs? The characters in Loveyapa (and Love Today) are shallow and unconvincing. Still, what distinguishes Love Today from Loveyapa is that Ranganathan had made the former with a style and a voice. Chandan is simply going through the motions - he has no voice, no creativity. The scene where Gaurav asks his friends to think of an excuse to get his phone back from Baani is executed haphazardly. In the original, one could sense that the friends were actually thinking. Here, everybody seems to be reading lines from a Teleprompter, and that too so swiftly that the passport verification joke fails to land effectively. The joke involving a water delivery guy in Loveyapa comes without comic energy. Another joke where Anupam (Kiku Sharda) "rescues" a child from drowning feels unfunny. In Love Today, Yogi Babu kept his phone in the car, and later, you understood why. However, when Anupam gives his phone to a foreigner, you only find his action weird due to the clarification he offers near the movie's finish line.

What's more, the name of that WhatsApp group was more creative in Love Today (Gates of Heaven). That group is called Hawasi Launde in this remake (it's a very generic name). Hell, even the hacker friend's explanation when he's asked how he tracked a culprit sounds better in Love Today. In Loveyapa, Chandan merely uses the moment to repeat a warning about fishy links. Ranganathan's rom-com had a Tom and Jerry cartoon energy. Chandan goes one step ahead by creating live-action emoticons on the screen (smoke comes out of Baani's ears when she becomes angry). As a result, Junaid and Khushi have no chemistry. The space between them is merely filled with various types of emojis. Maybe Bollywood filmmakers should make a WhatsApp group to discuss their shortcomings. They might either end up repairing their flaws or choke the chat box with talks of a remake of some other South Indian property.

Final Score- [1/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times