Love Aaj Kal (2009)

An old-fashioned romantic tells his personal love story to a modern man who has just broken up with his girlfriend. Has love really ever changed?

Director:

Imtiaz Ali

Writer:

Imtiaz Ali

Stars:

Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Rishi Kapoor

13 wins & 37 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Saif Ali Khan	...	Jai Vardhan Singh / Veer Singh
Deepika Padukone	...	Meera Pandit
Rishi Kapoor	...	Veer Singh
Rahul Khanna	...	Vikram Joshi
Florence Brudenell-Bruce	...	Jo
Giselli Monteiro	...	Harleen Kaur
Raj Zutshi	...	Harleen's Father
Nirupama Verma
Gunjas Singh
Chandan Anand
Dhirendra Divedi
Sanjay Gandhi
Rajinder Sharma Nanu	...	Laale
Vir Das	...	Shonty
Kavi Shastri	...	Jaat

Storyline

London-based Jai Vardhan Singh and Meera Pandit meet, fall in love, and she introduces him to her family. Shortly thereafter, they decide to part as she wants to re-locate to India to restore heritage buildings, while he re-locates to America. Restauranteur Veer Singh attempts to convince Jai to pursue her, as he had pursued Harleen Kaur back in 1965 India, but Jai moves on and falls in love with Caucasian Jo, while Meera is all set to get marry her employer, Vikram Joshi.

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Plot Keywords:

love | old versus new | psychiatrist | visual metaphor | symbolism | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Release Date:

31 July 2009 (India)

Also Known As:

Love Nowadays

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,241,762, 2 August 2009, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$2,425,386, 30 August 2009

Company Credits

Production Co:

Illuminati Films, Eros International

Technical Specs

Runtime:

128 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Giselli Monteiro auditioned for the role of Pae (Saif Ali Khan's non-Indian girlfriend). At this point, Imtiaz Ali had searched for females all around India for Harleen, but couldn't find the right girl. After seeing her screen test, Imtiaz Ali's wife suggested to cast Gisellle for the role of Harleen.

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Goofs

When Jai and Meera meet up deciding to break up, they hold hands and Jai talks about the irritating traffic. In the next shot, Meera's hands are on her lap.

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Connections

References Nagin (1954)

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Soundtracks

Thoda Thoda Pyar
Written by Irshad Kamil
Composed by Pritam Chakraborty
Performed by Sunidhi Chauhan
Courtesy of EROS Music

User Reviews

Love Is Eternal...Not Aaj-Kal

We are now living into a materialistic world where even the relationships are now built on calculation...but does that mean that the essence of true feelings have gone obsolete? Finding answer of such trivial question would take you a long time unless you want to see a 2+ hours movie called "Love Aaj kal". I am sure now the bells would not ring but definitely in time to come people would realize that the message delivered by the movie is much deeper than what it feels from the first look.

This movie is a journey of love from past to present, to convey the message that something doesn't change with the time and at the end one has to follow his/her heart because that's what is the real pursuit of happiness.

The story of movie revolves around two protagonists, one from the present and one from past. Only with the glitch of time -frame change, both the stories follows the same path and ultimately ends at the very point where essentially a true love story should end, A happy ending. The only difference in both the stories is the way realization happen, in the one of past the realization is much of obvious where as in the present it's quite melodramatic yet very close to a real life incident which you could see around.

Yet after being such serene,pure and refreshing what this movie lacks is the attachment with the characters, you would not be able to connect to the characters as you should, may be the soul of it is missing due to lack of chemistry between the lead actors Saif and Deepika.

I wouldn't say they didn't perform well but still I was kind of disconnect to them though I felt more connected to story of past..may be because I still have my faith on age old love sagas :-). I guess the chemistry between Saif-Deepika didn't work as well as it was expected.

Performance wise, I guess Deepika was standout of the entire cast, she played her role of straight headed career oriented woman with much of ease and really was completely involved in her role (May be because her traits belongs to the same). Saif was looking much of a confused person not only because his role demanded it but also because may be he was not hitting the right cord along with Deepika. Role played by Rishi Kapoor is fantastic, he was the best fit for the role and the urge, excitement and emotions he portrayed were so true to be real that it always made you feel it was coming right from heart and you would want to follow them.

Music is really peppy and catchy, few tunes are foot tapping and there is a very nice soft song "Dooriyan" which would slowly intoxicate you. Cinematography is also very nice and so as direction, the best thing of direction is that Imtiaz never does copy of anyone's style but his improvisation is so nice that he somewhat creates a cult, be it "Socha Na Tha" or "Jab We Met".... you would find people relating themselves to the characters, I am sure this would continue after Love Aaj kal as well. He always come to characters not larger than life but true to life, absolute treat to watch his movies.

All in all this is a good bet to spend your money.