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29 March 2024

Bollywood review: Even Salman Khan can’t save ‘Ishq in Paris’ from sinking

Published
By Sneha May Francis

“Ishq (love) is overrated,” announces the bouncy leading lady in ‘Ishq in Paris’, but goes about investing much of her life in romantic clichés.

Director Prem Raj’s seemingly frothy romance, which is heavily inspired by Hollywood’s ‘Before Sunrise’, is a tale of contradictions.

Although his potential lovers keep on harping about their lack of tolerance for mush, they inevitably end up doing just what they promised not to.

While all the talk about love or the lack of it, can make any person cringe, Raj is relentless in dishing out conversation after conversation about love, and more importantly, love in Paris during the 100-minutes of screen time.

The title is repeated innumerable times, in fragments, almost drilling it into our subconscious, lest we forget what we had bargained for. Even his heroine is named Ishq!

While Ethan Hawk-Julie Deply’s 1995 romance ends after their romantic one-day hook-up, Raj decides to take the story forward for his Bollywood audience, only he isn’t quite talented or equipped with creative insight to do so.

Two strangers – one who dresses exclusively in tiny skirts and high boots and the other in corporate shades – meet on a train and decide to spend an entire evening together in Paris with the promise of never meeting again.

The woman lives in Paris, while the man works in London. They are both Indian, but (surprisingly) bump into French, who speak Hindi.

They chat the night away as they trek the city. From watching the Eiffel Tower in its luminous glory to partying it up to desi beats, to being subjected to the visions of a closet cynic, to enacting a reunion in different "takes", they end up sharing a lot.

And, when they aren’t playing a strange game of dice, that prompts what they must do next, they share their collection of inane ‘pick-up’ lines.

All this exercise is supposed to be endearing, but unfortunately, it never is.

Thankfully, it dawns into another day and the two go separate ways only to reunite much later for an Indian wedding. All the song-and-dance leads to them hooking up, only on the promise that they'll remain unmarried, happy, and (will willingly) attend other people’s weddings.

But, that reality never unveils. Before you know there's trouble in paradise.

‘Ishq in Paris’ attempts to be intellectual and clever about love, but it tries (way) too hard.

For a movie that heavily relies on mush and good conversation, the lead “lovers” and dialogue writers don't deliver.

Preity Zinta flashes her curly locks, lovely smile and dimples, in an attempt to give Ishq a cutesy image. It’s a dejavu of sorts, considering she has played similar shades before, but with age, we were expecting some level of maturity and refinement, which was evidently lacking.

Every time she took Akash’s name, we wished it was Aamir Khan (from 'Dil Chahta Hai') who’d pop up on screen, but alas, it was newbie Rhehan Malliek.

He’s easy on the eye, but that’s about all we can say. He crinkles his eyes and flashes a smile, but guess you need more than good physical attributes to make the female crowd skip their heartbeat.

Probably Preity was aware of this, and hence roped in good friend (and heartthrob) Salman Khan to play wedding dancer. But, even their little jig doesn’t do much, except reveal that she’s still quite good at the Bollywood dance routines.

Apart from Chunky Pandey and French actress Isabelle Adjani, who speaks in American-accented English and proper Hindi, there's celebrated filmmaker Shekar Kapoor who make token appearances.

Isn’t it ironical that in its 100th year of existence, Bollywood is still unable to cook up a frothy love story, something that was a staple until not too long ago.