Most love stories, as we know them, are full of clichés, repeated for generations to give the receptors a romantic facade. Familiar with the girl-boy enmity that turns into love? A love triangle where the bond of friendship overrides and makes room for life-altering sacrifices? A good-turns-evil or evil-turns-good character change? We’ve watched them all in cinemas, daily soaps, music videos and all kinds of consumable video materials for years.
Until when will the audience be subjected to these irrational clichés, and continue to have their intelligence challenged? Released this week, “Love Diaries” is a supposed romantic drama that in reality is nothing but a show-reel of repetitive banalities. In fact, one is forced to consider if the filmmakers first jotted down all the available clichés into their diaries, and then nonchalantly wrote a plot over them.
Love Diaries was meant to be a Valentine’s special. Directed by newcomer Saurav Chaudhary, the movie collided in its release with Bollywood veteran Imtiaz Ali’s “Love Aaj Kal,” both the films trying to capitalize on the Valentine’s Day crowd. It was courageous on the part of the distributors and producers to release the Nepali movie against Love Aaj Kal which stars the current Bollywood heartthrob Kartik Aaryan.
Unfortunately, both the movies failed to make V-Day romantic enough. There are reports of Love Aaj Kal’s weak collections, with critics already claiming the market has rejected it. We can only guess from the empty cinema halls, the dwindling number of daily shows, and social media word-of-mouth that Lovie Diaries too is a box-office dud.
It’s a story of three strangers who cross paths and then intermingle in a complicated relationship, like hundreds of similar romantic movies released across the world. Needless to say, even the characters are written dispassionately and the lack of creativity in writing (both the plot and dialogues) makes one cringe.
Nirvan Narsingh Rana (Sushil Shrestha) is a wealthy NRN, born and brought up in Canada, who is forcibly sent to Nepal by his father to curb his drinking and womanizing habits. Ram Aryal (Bishwojit Rimal) is a migrant worker who’s deported from England and has a family loan to settle in his hometown of Chitwan. Sanjana Malla (Rubeena Thapa) is a Kathmandu-girl who wants to be an interior designer against the will of her father.
A hotel in Chitwan—owned by Nirvan’s father, where Ram works as Nirvan’s assistant and Sanjana as the interior designer—becomes the plot’s epicenter. What then transpires between them has been played onscreen for years, only presented rather absurdly in this one. The story of how they get to Chitwan—don’t even ask. The screenplay offers more jerks than a Ratnapark-Jorpati microbus trying to outrun its competitor.
The writing is not the only disappointment in the movie. There’s a feeling of immatureness, negligence and sloppiness surrounding the whole production. The night scenes suffer from terrible lighting while continuity is a forgotten art for the filmmakers.
Debutant Bishwojit is the biggest let-down. His presence onscreen makes one question the filmmakers’ intent. With zero acting skills, feeble dialogue delivery and the most unassertive gait possible, Bishwojit proves to be a disastrous choice for the lead, not that the filmmakers seem to care much about other aspects of the movie.
Another debutant, Rubeena, kind of becomes a causality amid all this mess. But she definitely draws attention with her acting as well as dancing skills. She’s a promising performer who hopefully makes better choices in the future.
Who should watch it?
Well, we met a group of a dozen-odd young men who’d come to the theater just for Sushil Shrestha. Performance-wise, the actor is just repeating his character from “Hostel Returns” (2016) for which he earned many young fans. If you’re not among his big fans, spare the ticket-money for another film.
Rating: 1 star
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Run time: 2hrs 5min
Director: Saurav Chaudhary
Cast: Sushil Shrestha, Rubeena Thapa, Bishwojit Rimal
