Love Today (2022)

Love Today (2022)

Written, Directed and Performed by: Pradeep Ranganathan

Love Today has a terrific idea - terrific because the idea is so simple and has enough depth to explore more than enough. Two lovers are asked to exchange their phones and then decide if they still want to get married. Initially, both of them take it easily, but slowly a lot of lies start coming out. And loss of trust happens. Is there recovery from that? It's a terrific idea for a rom-com, and it's mostly executed well. The best part about the film is that though it's a rom-com, it's treated like a family entertainer with the settings they choose in the film and the way the screenplay unfolds. It's solid on structure and I can see why it's a blockbuster. I enjoyed Yogi Babu's subplot, it added a nice layer to the whole premise. There's one moment in the film that melted my heart, when the protagonist just breaks down in front of his mom. In that moment, one can forget the context and just the image of a young man finally bursting in front of his mother was so moving.

I had some issues with the film. Though the film is packaged as a modern romance, the worldview of the film suddenly becomes so old school sometimes - when he asks her if she's virgin and things like that. The whole conflict of her morphed MMS leaking seemed forced and a tad bit unrealistic conflict in the otherwise grounded, slice of life film. Suddenly with this, the film gets into a life and death territory which is a slight tonal jump. Although the film recovers from that pretty well and soon. I like how the film addresses the line between being silly as a young boy and actually being harmful to strangers on the internet. Overall, I enjoyed the film except for some minor hiccups.