GenZ reacts to Sridevi-Anil Kapoor’s 1991 film Lamhe: A twisted plot my brain still can’t process; cult classic, how?

Sridevi and Anil Kapoor's 1991 film Lamhe became a cult classic, despite its box office failure. Here's my GenZ review of Yash Chopra's romantic-musical drama.

Written by Navya Kharbanda
New Delhi | August 14, 2025 16:57 IST

GenZ reacts to Sridevi and Anil Kapoor's Lamhe

‘Yeh Lamhe, Yeh Pal Hum, Barson Yaad Karenge’ is a song I always heard from my father, but never took interest to ask what he was actually singing, until I saw the film and was already deep into it. On late legend Sridevi’s 62nd birthday, I, a GenZ, watched one of her most beloved films, Lamhe. Featuring her as Pooja Bhatnagar and Pallavi, the film also starred Anil Kapoor as Virendra Pratap Singh, Deepak Malhotra as Siddharth Kumar Bhatnagar, Anupam Kher as Prem Anand, and Waheeda Rehman.

Before sitting through the entire three-hour film, I decided to catch up with the trailer. My jaw-dropped, and I am not saying this in a good way. Like, it literally dropped to see how trailers were treated during the 90s. Without giving any clear glimpse, it was just high-paced background score with the female lead roaming around in the garden. Despite Sridevi’s double role as both mother and daughter and being YRF’s production, the film tanked badly at the box office.

Sparked age-gap debate before age-gap debate existed

A still from Lamhe

GenZs are always bashed by Boomers and Millennials for watching wild content on the OTT medium. Are we forgetting that they watched the controversial film Lamhe during their era? If I tell my dad today, that I am watching a Netflix film in which the plot is about a man falling in love with a woman, and then years later falling for her daughter (who looks exactly like her), he would freak out. For 1991, considering it was a pre-social media era, this still feels like a taboo in the ‘family WhatsApp group’. When Yash Chopra made Lamhe, the world wasn’t ready. Neither was my brain in 2025.

Layered love, old-school style

Keeping the plot’s questionable ethics aside, the love and romance shown in Lamhe surely gave me a feeling of, ‘Is this what love is?’ GenZs are surely too busy in making quick and rash decisions when it comes to starting a new relationship or discarding an old one. Sridevi and Anil Kapoor in a way can give a fresh (though dark, twisted) perspective to today’s generation – Love takes decades, not dates. The layered romance wasn’t accepted in India at that time, but the film performed decently abroad.

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YRF has lost its charm

A still from Lamhe

If we draw a crystal clear comparison of Yash Raj Films’ productions in the 90s to now, there has been a significant shift, and not a good one necessarily. The way there was a pretty mood board in every scene – for example, when Pallavi met Viren in Rajasthan, there was golden light, camel bells, and chiffon, all in a similar tone or shade. Everything coming together in sync, all at once, made many moments in Lamhe special in my view. Where did that cinematic vision and magic go away?

Too much drama

Too much drama, which is expected from typical daily soaps, was a big turn off in the film. At the turning point where Sridevi aka Pallavi and her husband die is over-the-top melodramatic. As a GenZ, its not a sizeable element while consuming content now, which might have been otherwise during that time. For a second, my first thought was, ‘So we are just moving to the daughter now? Okay!’

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More than three decades later, Lamhe is not everyone’s cup of tea. Its flawed but bold, and that’s what made it a cult classic after years of its release. Despite being ahead of its time back in 1991, I still can’t register the film’s messy plot in my mind!

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